Find and share the perfect poems.
As though
the river were
a floor, we position
our table and chairs
upon it, eat, and
have conversation.
As it moves along,
we notice—as
calmly as though
dining room paintings
were being replaced—
the changing scenes
along the shore. We
do know, we do
know this is the
Niagara River, but
it is hard to remember
what that means.
From The Niagara River by Kay Ryan, published by Grove Press. Copyright © 2005 by Kay Ryan. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
What you think is the point is not the point at all but only the beginning of the sharpness.
Flann O’Brien, The Third Policeman
It’s hard for
the master
sharpener after
all that work
to have the shaft
taken for the point.
People run themselves
Montaigne
You can oversell
the sea, say, or
the way we miss
the dead. The littlest
bit of absence excites
oceans. And of oceans
the less said the
better: the wet beyond
the land: we have a
Since then I have slowly learned to grasp how everything is connected across space and time.
W.G. Sebald, A Place in the Country
There is a webby and
exalted state of
comprehension wherein
discrete events—like the
rigging lights of separate
boats upon a midnight
ocean—suggest a net: