Once I was lost in a forest. I was so afraid. My blood pounded in my chest and I knew my heart's strength would soon be exhausted. I saved myself without thinking. I grasped the two syllables closest to me, and replaced my heartbeat with your name. Anne Michaels More Quotes by Anne Michaels More Quotes From Anne Michaels When my parents were liberated, four years before I was born, they found that the ordinary world outside the camp had been eradicated. There was no more simple meal, no thing was less than extraordinary: a fork, a mattress, a clean shirt, a book. Not to mention such things that can make one weep: an orange, meat and vegetables, hot water. There was no ordinariness to return to, no refuge from the blinding potency of things, an apple screaming its sweet juice. Anne Michaels gratitude sweet book The shadow past is shaped by everything that never happened. Invisible, it melts the present like rain through karst. Anne Michaels shadow rain past The dead leave us starving with mouths full of love.” from “Memoriam Anne Michaels starving mouths The spirit in the body is like wine in a glass; when it spills, it seeps into air and earth and light….It’s a mistake to think it’s the small things we control and not the large, it’s the other way around! We can’t stop the small accident, the tiny detail that conspires into fate: the extra moment you run back for something forgotten, a moment that saves you from an accident – or causes one. But we can assert the largest order, the large human values daily, the only order large enough to see. Anne Michaels wine mistake running History and memory share events; that is, they share time and space. Every moment is two moments. Anne Michaels space memories two I see that I must give what I most need. Anne Michaels giving needs Even as a child, even as my blood-past was drained from me, I understood that if I were strong enough to accept it, I was being offered a second history. Anne Michaels strong children past Though the contradictions of war seem sudden and simultaneous, history stalks before it strikes. Something tolerated soon becomes something good. Anne Michaels stalking contradiction war When a man dies, his secrets bond like crystals, like frost on a window. His last breath obscures the glass. Anne Michaels glasses secret men Now we're like planets, holding to each other from a great distance. [...] Now we're hundreds of miles apart, our short arms keep us lonely, no one hears what's in my head. [...] It's March, even the birds don't know what to do with themselves. Anne Michaels distance lonely bird I wanted a line in a poem to be the hollow ney of the dervish orchestra whose plaintive wail is a call to God. But all I achieved was awkward shrieking. Not even the pure shriek of a reed in the rain. Anne Michaels awkward poetry rain ...when we say we're looking for a spiritual adviser, we're really looking for someone to tell us what to do with our bodies. Decisions of the flesh. We forget to learn from pleasure as well as pain. Anne Michaels pain decision spiritual Trees for example, carry the memory of rainfal. In their rings we read ancient weather - storms, sunlight and temperatures, the growing seasons of centuries. A forest shares a history which each tree remembers even after it has been felled. Anne Michaels tree weather memories Like other ghosts, she whispers; not for me to join her, but so that, when I'm close enough, she can push me back into the world. Anne Michaels enough ghost world History is the gradual instant Anne Michaels instant Fiction allows you to embody certain ideas and give them an emotional reality. The characters allow you to get close viscerally to an idea. Anne Michaels you emotional reality ideas I think there are all kinds of aspects to reality, to domestic reality, and why don't we just talk about them all? Anne Michaels why talk think reality There should be a democracy of voices in literature. There are people who live with a kind of striving and with a certain kind of tenderness - it's not an unusual thing - and maybe that's not written about enough. Anne Michaels live democracy literature people Certain things can't be approximated, so I'm always interested in getting in another way, one which makes the reader bend in closer to the scene even if that scene, especially if that scene, is painful... Brutal language isn't necessarily the most truthful way of describing a brutal moment. Anne Michaels moment always language way I'm not being naive; I realise there's no such thing as a pure reading. But I'd rather keep myself as far out of it as I can. Anne Michaels being myself i-can reading
