Damn

4. If it is true that the earth respires, That it speaks only to those Who command nothing– If it is true that the first man Was fashioned of corn. Of divine shit. Of dust– If a bale of cotton– If color is trance, And trance is to ride the back Of the first great bird In first flight– If the world has ended twelve times– If the atom is cognizant, coy; If light is both pow-wow And tango– If, at the final trumpet, Oil magnates will kiss the ankles Of earth-caked girls who traipse Along the highway’s edge, Hugging the mountain When trucks barrel past– If Satchmo. If Leadbelly– If wind on the horizon, Thundering the trees, Making all of our houses small–

Tracy K. Smith, from “The Nobodies” (via hypocrite-lecteur)

“The word ‘naked’ is a translation of the Hebrew erom, which is used to describe a state of being stripped or vulnerable, and is without sexual connotation. 

[…]

Called out by God, Adam says: ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.’ His nakedness, erom, merely implies vulnerability. Perhaps Adam and Eve hid from God not because they were suddenly prudish, nor because their disobedience had been found out, but because they realised their fragility and insignificance. They were exposed, not as sexual beings but as mortal ones.”

The Genesis of Blame, Anne Enright

boats | julie zlo

brain rain by .simstorm Via Flickr

To feel anything deranges you. To be seen feeling anything strips you naked.

Anne Carson, Red Doc> (via theclassicsreader)

We want so much, when perhaps we live best in the spaces between loves. That unconscious roving, the heart its own animal.

Tracy K. Smith, A Hunger So Honed (via: skinthepoet)