Until we can comprehend the beguiling beauty of a single flower, we are woefully unable to grasp the meaning and potential of life itself.
—Virginia Woolf
You have witchcraft in your lips.
—William Shakespeare
In the morning,
the light went through the house, lit every
surface, like the house was an ear
tilted toward the dawn, like it
was trying hard to listen.
—Lindsay Illich, closing lines to “Spectrum,” Foundry (December 2018)
If we wish to be let in on the secrets of life, we must be mindful of two things: first, there is the great melody to which things and scents, feelings and past lives, dawn and dreams contribute in equal measure, and then there are the individual voices that complete and perfect this full chorus. And to establish the basis for a work of art, that is, for an image of life lived more deeply, lived more than life as it is lived today, and as the possibility that it remains throughout the ages, we have to adjust and set into their proper relation these two voices, the one belonging to a specific moment and the other to the group of people living in it.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, from “On Life and Living,” The Poet’s Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke
Peaky Blinders
Grace & Tommy
Poetry relies on the conviction there are
trapdoors in words where great changes can enter,
the words themselves turn to windows or doors big enough
for revolution, revelation, kisses or friends.The poet says she knows there is no afterlife
and then kisses life so thoroughly from top to bottom
there isn’t any room for
after.
life.
—Barbara Lamorticella, from After. Life
The psychic work necessary to conceive of an angel is more painful and frightening than the one that manages to midwife demons and monsters.
—Odysseus Elytis, tr. by Olga Broumas & T. Begley, from “First Things First,”
Et mourir de plaisir / Blood and Roses (1960), dir. Roger Vadim
Morir… dormir… tal vez soñar (1976), dir. Manuel Mur Oti
That Day, on the Beach (1983), dir. Edward Yang
Mulholland Drive (2001), dir. David Lynch
Animation created by Matthias Brown. Source image: Audrey Wimble by unknown artist, Lewes Town Council, CC BY.



