96 Quotes by Mark Strand

From the shadow of domes in the city of domes,A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your roomAnd made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking upFrom your book, saw it the moment it landed. That's allThere was to it.

What we desire, more than a season or weather, is the comfortOf being strangers, at least to ourselves.

                And into the close and mirrored catacombs of sleepWe'll fall, and there in the faded light discover the bones,The dust, the bitter remains of someone who might have been                    Had we not taken his place.

I jump from a buildingAs if I were falling asleep,The wind like a pillowSlowing me down,Slowing me down As if I were dreaming.Surrounded by air,I come to a stop,And stand like a touristWatching the pigeons.People in offices,Wanting to save me,Open their mouths.'Throw me a stone,' I yell,Wanting to fall.But nobody listens.They throw me a rope.And now I am walking,Taking to you,Talking to youAs if I were dreamingI were alive.

So many silent battles are wagedBy those who sit alone and wait, and by those who delay.

It came to my house.It sat on my shoulders.Your shadow is yours. I told it so. I said it was yours.I have carried it with me too long. I give it back.

Will the same day ever come back, and with it Our amazement at having been in it, or will only a dark haze Spread at the back of the mind, erasing events, one after The other, so brief they may have been lost to begin with?

Life should be moreThan the body’s weight working itself from room to room.

There is no happiness like mine.I have been eating poetry.