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Even this late it happens: the coming of love, the coming of light.

Mark Strand

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Mark Strand
Age: 80 †
Born: 1934
Born: April 11
Died: 2014
Died: November 29
Editor
Poet
Translator
Writer
Happens
Light
Even
Love
Late
Coming

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Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler.
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Once you start describing nothingness, you end up with somethingness.
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Nothing is the destiny of everyone, it is our commonness made dumb.
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Sometimes he did not know if he slept or just thought about sleep.
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Life makes writing poetry necessary to prove I really was paying attention.
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I am not concerned with truth, nor with conventional notions of what is beautiful.
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From the reader's view, a poem is more demanding than prose.
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I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream.
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And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem.
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Poems not only demand patience, they demand a kind of surrender. You must give yourself up to them. This is the real food for a poet: other poems, not meat loaf.
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A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry, unless, of course, the life has been made into an art.
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...In another time, What cannot be seen will define us, and we shall be prompted To say that language is error, and all things are wronged By representation. The self, we shall say, can never be Seen with a disguise, and never be seen without one.
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She stood beside me for years, or was it a moment? I cannot remember. Maybe I loved her, maybe I didn't. There was a house, and then no house. There were trees, but none remain. When no one remembers, what is there? You, whose moments are gone, who drift like smoke in the afterlife, tell me something, tell me anything.
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If every head of state and every government official spent an hour a day reading poetry we'd live in a much more humane and decent world.
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Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry.
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I haven’t met God and I haven’t been to heaven, so I’m skeptical.
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No voice comes from outer space, from the folds of dust and carpets of wind to tell us that this is the way it was meant to happen, that if only we knew how long the ruins would last we would never complain.
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Even this late it happens the coming of love, the coming of light. You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves, stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows, sending up warm bouquets of air. Even this late the bones of the body shine and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.
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It came to my house. It sat on my shoulders. Your shadow is yours. I told it so. I said it was yours. I have carried it with me too long. I give it back.
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And what does it matter when light enters the room where a child sleeps and the waking mother, opening her eyes, wishes more than anything to be unwakened by what she cannot name?
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