Poetry is not a code to be broken but a way of seeing with the eyes shut. Linda Pastan More Quotes by Linda Pastan More Quotes From Linda Pastan I made a list of things I have Linda Pastan lists want remember There are poems Linda Pastan blue clouds moving What we want Linda Pastan stars dream morning Evil is simply Linda Pastan empathy errors evil What we want is never simple. Linda Pastan adversity simple inspirational I regret the way pain has taught me nothing. Linda Pastan regret pain way I have dreamed of our bed as if it were a shore where we would be washed up, not this striped mattress we must cover with sheets. [from "After an Absence"] Linda Pastan bed would-be absence I am tired of the litany Linda Pastan tired real flesh Just looking at them I grow greedy, as if they were freshly baked loaves waiting on their shelves to be broken open--that one and that--and I make my choice in a mood of exalted luck, browsing among them like a cow in sweetest pasture. For life is continuous as long as they wait to be read--these inked paths opening into the future, page after page, every book its own receding horizon. And I hold them, one in each hand, a curious ballast weighing me here to earth. Linda Pastan long book hands Grief is a circular staircase. Linda Pastan staircases grief Spring is the shortest season. Linda Pastan seasons spring
