Life

LIFE! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met,
I own to me 's a secret yet.
But this I know, when thou art fled,
Where'er they lay these limbs, this head,
No clod so valueless shall be
As all that then remains of me.

---------- Anna Lætitia Barbauld. 1743–1825

When it comes time to cash in that Ninth Life, I hope I will be in the sea. Man is a fish in exile. To become part of a kaleidoscopically dazzling coral reef certainly seems preferable to becoming food for worms in a city cemetery or burning in a crematory oven for an hour and a half.

»Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that what HAVE you had?«

Henry James
The Ambassadors

Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

(Eleanor Roosevelt)

I'm still not sure about the meaning of life. Fortunately, this is not a graded essay!

My Life Closed Twice Before it Closed
by Emily Dickinson

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

Every day is the first day of the rest of your life.

When I lie next to you
watching you sleep,
your skin is so soft and close
under my fingertips,
it makes me still
tremble with the memory
of desire.

I can feel your heart beat.

Nothing could add
to the perfection
of this moment.

How beautiful you are,
still smiling
like a dreaming sphinx,
shielding your secrets
behind your eyelids.

We've made eachother
breathless for hours.
My body feels
like liquid silk,
mesmerized and smooth
from your touch.

I close my eyes,
like I'm falling
and I wonder how
I have ever lived
without
you.

When we speak the word »life« it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from its surface of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach.

(Antonin Artaud)

Is it life enough if it walks on you in carbon
fiber bicycle shoes? Will she finally screw up
the nerve to be sexily offensive? A black glass
office is clearly about submission, which
it's nicest, always, to ignore.