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
Universal love is a glove without fingers, which fits all bands alike and none closely; but true affection is like a glove with fingers, which fits one hand only, and sits close to that one.
Jean PaulRead
Love is the last relay and ultimate outposts of eternity.
Dante Gabriel RossettiRead
I will write in words of fire. I will write them on your skin. I will write about desire. Write beginnings, write of sin. You’re the book I love the best, your skin only holds my truth, you will be a palimpsest lines of age rewriting youth. You will not burn upon the pyre. Or be buried on the shelf. You’re my letter to desire: And you’ll never read yourself. I will trace each word and comma As the final dusk descends, You’re my tale of dreams and drama, Let us find out how it ends.
Neil GaimanRead
I am a Christian person, and I do love the Lord, and I feel no matter who you are, what you believe, how you live your life, it's not my place to judge. I don't have that power. I don't want that power. It's my place to love and to show God's love to other people, even if they don't live a life like I live.
Carrie UnderwoodRead
So even as we see the horror of death, may we be reminded that in the end, love wins. Mercy triumphs. Life is more powerful than death. And even those who have committed great violence can have the image of God come to life again within them as they hear the whisper of love. May the whisper of love grow louder than the thunder of violence. May we love loudly.
Shane ClaiborneRead
But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you.
Antoine De Saint-ExuperyRead