A studio, like a poem, is an intimacy and a freedom you can look out from, into each part of your life and a little beyond.
Jane HirshfieldRead
There is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of light stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor, or the one red leaf the snow releases in March
Interpretation
Life presents temporary opportunities, leaving behind small remnants of what once was.
This quote reflects on the transient nature of experiences and opportunities in life. When a door opens, it allows for possibilities and experiences to occur, but just as quickly, it can close, leaving behind only faint traces, like 'a slip of light' or 'a scrap of unreadable paper.' These remnants symbolize memories or insights that linger long after the opportunities have passed, reminding us that even ephemeral moments can leave a lasting impact.
In practice
In a graduation speech to reflect on the fleeting nature of school memories.
A studio, like a poem, is an intimacy and a freedom you can look out from, into each part of your life and a little beyond.
What we want from art is whatever is missing from the lives we are already living and making. Something is always missing, and so art-making is endless.
as some strings, untouched, sound when no one is speaking. So it was when love slipped inside us.
Tree It is foolish to let a young redwood grow next to a house. Even in this one lifetime, you will have to choose. That great calm being, this clutter of soup pots and books-- Already the first branch-tips brush at the window. Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.
I write because to write a new sentence, let alone a new poem, is to cross the threshold into both a larger existence and a profound mystery. A thought was not there, then it is. An image, a story, an idea about what it is to be human, did not exist, then it does. With every new poem, an emotion new to the heart, to the world, speaks itself into being.
Zen pretty much comes down to three things -- everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.
The self is like a pimping blackmailing chauffeur who gets you from here to there on word lines.
The problem is we have to transcend cultural languages and fall into a phase with the communication systems that nature has placed all around us.
We understand that Nixon's aggression against Vietnam is a racist aggression, that the American war in Vietnam is a racist war, a white man's war...We deplore that you are being used as cannon fodder for U.S. imperialism. We've seen photographs of American bombs and antipersonnel weapons being dropped, wantonly, accidentally perhaps, on your heads, on the heads of your comrades.
At the moment you are most in awe of all there is about life that you don't understand, you are closer to understanding it all than at any other time.
Man is not constituted to take pleasure in the same things always.
I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.