I held you in the square And felt the evening Re-order itself around Your smile.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the profound impact of love and joy experienced in someone's presence.
In this quote, Ben Okri conveys the transformative power of love and connection. The imagery of the evening reordering itself around the subject's smile suggests that true love can alter one's perception of time and reality, highlighting the depth and beauty that a profound bond can introduce into everyday moments.
In practice
During a wedding toast, to emphasize the power of love in shaping our experiences.
One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us.
Our time here is magic! It's the only space you have to realize whatever it is that is beautiful, whatever is true, whatever is great, whatever is potential, whatever is rare, whatever is unique, in. It's the only space.
Don't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.
I began my writing life as a poet, so poetry has always been fundamental. I evolved from poetry to journalism to stories to novels. But poetry was always there.
The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and wonder cannot be made into law. And so these legislators police the accepted frontiers of things.
We can still astonish the gods in humanity_x000D_ _x000D_ And be the stuff of future legends,_x000D_ _x000D_ If we but dare to be real,_x000D_ _x000D_ And have the courage to see_x000D_ _x000D_ That this is the time to dream_x000D_ _x000D_ The best dream of them all.
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father refuse thy name, thou art thyself thou not a montegue, what is montegue? tis nor hand nor foot nor any other part belonging to a man What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, So Romeo would were he not Romeo called retain such dear perfection to which he owes without that title, Romeo, Doth thy name! And for that name which is no part of thee, take all thyself.
What do any of us really know about love?
So much of the language of love was like that: you devoured someone with your eyes, you drank in the sight of him, you swallowed him whole. Love was substance, broken down and beating through your bloodstream.
An angel; or, if not,_x000D_ _x000D_ An earthly paragon.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come.
The girl who I will marry will have a heart so wise that in the hollow of her eyes my heart will want to tarry. The girl who will be mine will have skin so soft and tender, and when it comes December, her skin will be my wine.
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