Close, close all night the lovers keep. They turn together in their sleep, Close as two pages in a book that read each other in the dark. Each knows all the other knows, learned by heart from head to toes.
Elizabeth BishopRead
It was cold and windy, scarcely the day to take a walk on that long beach Everything was withdrawn as far as possible, indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken, seabirds in ones or twos. The rackety, icy, offshore wind numbed our faces on one side; disrupted the formation of a lone flight of Canada geese; and blew back the low, inaudible rollers in upright, steely mist.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote describes a cold and windy day at the beach, reflecting a sense of isolation and the intensity of nature.
In this passage, Elizabeth Bishop paints a vivid picture of a desolate beach on a cold and blustery day. The imagery evokes feelings of solitude and withdrawal, both in nature and in the observer's experience. The elements, such as the distant tide, shivering seabirds, and the harsh wind, create an atmosphere that mirrors emotional introspection and a sense of stark beauty amidst discomfort.
Themes
ColdBeachNatureIsolationWindSolitude
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker at a nature retreat might use this quote to illustrate the beauty and harshness of the natural world.
More from Elizabeth Bishop
All quotes →I am overcome by my own amazing sloth...Can you please forgive me and believe that it is really because I want to do something well that I don't do it at all?
Elizabeth BishopRead
Dreams were the worst. Of course I dreamed of food and love, but they were pleasant rather than otherwise. But then I'd dream of things like slitting a baby's throat, mistaking it for a baby goat. I'd have nightmares of other islands stretching away from mine, infinities of islands, islands spawning islands, like frogs' eggs turning into polliwogs of islands, knowing that I had to live on each and every one, eventually, for ages, registering their flora, their fauna, their geography.
Elizabeth BishopRead
Open the book. (The gilt rubs off the edges of the pages and pollinates the fingertips.)
Elizabeth BishopRead
It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free.
Elizabeth BishopRead
What one seems to want in art, in experiencing it, is the same thing that is necessary for its creation, a self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration.
Elizabeth BishopRead
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