10 Quotes by May Swenson

OctoberI sit with braided fingersand closed eyesin a span of late sunlight.The spokes are closing.It is fall: warm milk of light,though from an aging breast.I do not mean to pray.The posture for thanks orsupplication is the sameas for weariness or relief.But I am glad for the luckof light. Surely it is godly,that it makes all thingsbegin, and appear, and becomeactual to each other.Light that’s sucked intothe eye, warming the brainwith wires of color.

Body my house my horse my hound what will I do when you are fallen

Remain aghast at life

The summer that I was ten – Can it be there was only one summer that I was ten? It must have been a long one then.

The best poetry has its roots in the subconscious to a great degree. Youth, naivety, reliance on instinct more than learning and method, a sense of freedom and play, even trust in randomness, is necessary to the making of a poem.

Take earth for your own large room and the floor of earth carpeted with sunlight and hung round with silver wind for your dancing place.

Poetry can magnify experience.

Bat doesn’t hit ball, bat meets it.

I’m two eyes looking out of a suit of armor. I write because I can’t talk.