I can't imagine ever writing anything of any kind on a machine. I never tried to write either poetry or prose on a typewriter. I like to do it on useless paper, scrap paper, because it's of no importance.
W. S. MerwinRead
Through all of youth I was looking for you_x000D_ without knowing what I was looking for_x000D_ part memory part distance remaining _x000D_ mine in the ways that I learn to miss you_x000D_ from what we cannot hold the stars are made.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the longing and searching for a deep connection, suggesting that love is intertwined with memory and experience.
W. S. Merwin's quote captures the essence of a search for love and connection throughout one's youth, where the speaker acknowledges their longing without fully understanding it. The words illustrate how memories and the feelings of absence create a sense of yearning, implying that what we cannot possess often shapes our desires and aspirations, likening such emotions to the beauty of stars that emerge from the distances between us.
In practice
In a graduation speech about growing up and moving on to new phases in life.
I can't imagine ever writing anything of any kind on a machine. I never tried to write either poetry or prose on a typewriter. I like to do it on useless paper, scrap paper, because it's of no importance.
I think there's a kind of desperate hope built into poetry that one really wants, hopelessly, to save the world. One is trying to say everything that can be said for the things that one loves while there's still time.
The kind of writing that matters most to me is something you don't learn about. It's constantly coming out of what I don't know rather than what I do know.
I say to my breath once again, little breath come from in front of me, go away behind me, row me quietly now, as far as you can, for I am an abyss that I am trying to cross.
What I really believe is the only hopeful relation between our life and the whole of life is one of reverence and respect and of feeling at one with it. The other attitude which is the one our society is based on is devastating and it is killing the earth and it is killing us too.
I go five steps in the garden, and I immediately lose track of time... it is a kind of joy in being alive in being in the world. I always found that in the garden. That is what it means to me.
A soul cannot live without loving. It must have something to love, for it was created to love.
I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I Did, till we loved? were we not weaned till then? But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the seven sleepers' den?
Old hands soil, it seems, whatever they caress, but they too have their beauty when they are joined in prayer. Young hands were made for caresses and the sheathing of love. It is a pity to make them join too soon.
But it is just two lovers, holding hands and in a hurry to reach their car, their locked hands a starfish leaping through the dark.
A good disposition is a virtue in itself, and it is lasting; the burden of the years cannot depress it, and love that is founded on it endures to the end.
Ah, I am the judge of dreams, and you are the judge of love. Well, I find you guilty of dreaming good dreams, and sentence you to a lifetime of working and suffering for the sake of your dreams. I only hope that someday you won't declare me innocent of the crime of loving you.
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