To me, poetry is somebody standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what it is for him or her to be on earth at this moment
Galway KinnellRead
When I sleepwalk into your room, and pick you up, and hold you up in the moonlight, you cling to me hard, as if clinging could save us. I think you think I will never die, I think I exude to you the permanence of smoke or stars, even as my broken arms heal themselves around you.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote describes a deep emotional connection and the desire for permanence in love amidst the impermanence of life.
In this quote, Galway Kinnell reflects on a profound moment of intimacy between two people, illustrating the yearning for stability and security in a loving relationship. The imagery evokes both tenderness and fragility, suggesting that while love offers comfort and connection, there is an underlying awareness of life's transience, encapsulated in the metaphor of permanence found in the natural world, like smoke or stars.
Themes
LoveConnectionIntimacyPermanenceFragility
In practice
Example use cases
Sharing this quote at a wedding to highlight the beauty of eternal love.
More from Galway Kinnell
All quotes →Turn on the dream you lived through the unwavering gaze. It is as you thought: the living burn. In the floating days may you discover grace.
Galway KinnellRead
Little sleep's-head sprouting hair in the moonlight, when I come back we will go out together, we will walk out together among, the ten thousand things, each scratched too late with such knowledge, the wages of dying is love.
Galway KinnellRead
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again, their memories are what give them the need for other hands. And the desolation of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness carved out of such tiny beings as we are asks to be filled; the need for the new love is faithfulness to the old.
Galway KinnellRead
Similar quotes
Jesus has made Himself the Bread of Life to give us life. Night and day, He is there. If you really want to grow in love, come back to the Eucharist, come back to that Adoration.
Mother TeresaRead
Enough about my beauty," Buttercup said. "Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I've got a mind, Westley. Talk about that.
William GoldmanRead
It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezRead
A five-word sentence that could change the world tomorrow is What would love do now?
Neale Donald WalschRead
Everyman is thoroughly happy twice in his life, just after he has met his first love, and just after he has left his last one.
H. L. MenckenRead
Why is the measure of love loss?
Jeanette WintersonRead