“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of

May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a

date.” William Shakespeare CC image via

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“Your absence has gone through meLike thread through a needle.Everything I do is stitched with its color.”

“Separation” W.S. Merwin

“Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life?”“The Summer Day”Mary Oliver

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“I would like to be the air that

inhabits you for a

moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed & that

necessary.”

“Variation on the Word Sleep” Margaret Atwood CC image via

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“I wheeled with the stars,my heart broke loose on the wind.”

“Poetry”Pablo Neruda

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“Yesterday someone said, “It gets late so early.”I wrote it down. I was going to do something with it.Maybe it is a title and this life is the poem.”

“The Time” Naomi Shihab Nye

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"Live in the layers,not on the litter."Though I lack the artto decipher it,no doubt the next chapterin my book of transformationsis already written.I am not done with my changes.

“The Layers”Stanley Kunitz

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o/

“She kissed me again, reaching that placethat sends messages to toes and fingertips,then all the way to something like home.Some music was playing on its own.”

“The Kiss”Stephen Dunn

“The world is too much with us; late and soonLittle we see in Nature that is ours;We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!”

“The World Is Too Much with Us”

William Wordsworth

Some say the world will

end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of

desire

I hold with those who

favor fire.

But if it had to perish

twice,

I think I know enough of

hate

To say that for destruction

ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Robert Frost,

“Fire and Ice”CC image photo via http://www.flickr.com/photos/furryscalyman/439282859/sizes/l/

“Hold fast to dreamsFor if dreams dieLife is a broken-winged bird…”“Hold Fast to Dreams”Langston Hughes

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“Like a diver on a lofty spar of landAtop the flight of stairs I stand.A whirlpool leers at me,I cast off my

identityAnd make the fatal plunge”

“Family Reunion”Sylvia Plath

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agogear/289294488/sizes/m/

Let it come, as it will, and don'tbe afraid. God does not leave uscomfortless, so let evening come.

“Let Evening Come”Jane Kenyon

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But little by little,as you left their voices behind,the stars began to burnthrough the sheets of clouds,and there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own,that kept you companyas you strode deeper and deeperinto the world,determined to dothe only thing you could do--determined to savethe only life you could save.

“The Journey”Mary Oliver

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Today, from a distance, I saw youwalking away, and without a sound

the glittering face of a glacierslid into the sea. An ancient oak

fell in the Cumberlands, holding onlya handful of leaves, and an old woman

scattering corn to her chickens looked upfor an instant. At the other side

of the galaxy, a star thirty-five timesthe size of our own sun exploded

and vanished, leaving a small green spoton the astronomer's retina

as he stood on the great open domeof my heart with no one to tell.

“After Years”Ted Kooser

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