96 Quotes by Mark Strand

For soon the leaves,Having gone black, would fall, and the annulling snowWould pillow the walk, and we, with shovels in hand, would meet,Bow, and scrape the sidewalk clean. What else would there beThis late in the day for us but desire to make amendsAnd start again, the sun’s compassion as it disappears.

A poem is a place where the conditions of beyondness and withinness are made palpable, where to imagine is to feel what it is like to be. It allows us to have the life we are denied because we are too busy living. Even more paradoxically, a poem permits us to live in ourselves as if we were just out of reach of ourselves.

No voice comes from outer space, from the folds of dust and carpets of wind to tell us that this is the way it was meant to happen, that if only we knew how long the ruins would last we would never complain.

I believeThat someone is already there and is waitingFor the pale appearance of another.

Time slips by; our sorrows do not turn into poems,And what is invisible stays that way.

We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention.

The HillI have come this far on my own legs,missing the bus, missing taxis,climbing always. One foot in front of the other,that is the way I do it.It does not bother me, the way the hill goes on.Grass beside the road, a tree rattlingits black leaves. So what?The longer I walk, the farther I am from everything.One foot in front of the other. The hours pass.One foot in front of the other. The years pass.The colors of arrival fade.That is the way I do it.

-A cloud is never a mirror-Words about clouds are clouds themselves-If snow falls inside a cloud, only the cloud knows-A cloud dreams only of triangles-Clouds are in love with horizons-The cloud that was gone would never come back-Every lake desires a cloud-A cloud is a cathedral without belief-Clouds cannot see what we do under the umbrella-Clouds are thoughts without words

Nobody sees it happening, but the architecture of our timeIs becoming the architecture of the next time.