v-ecelle

[v-ecelle]

Conclave (2024)

[v-ecelle]

Invitation to Love by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Come when the nights are bright with stars Or come when the moon is mellow; Come when the sun his golden bars Drops on the hay-field yellow. Come in the twilight soft and gray, Come in the night or come in the day, Come, O love, whene’er you may, And you are welcome, welcome.

You are sweet, O Love, dear Love, You are soft as the nesting dove. Come to my heart and bring it to rest As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.

Come when my heart is full of grief Or when my heart is merry; Come with the falling of the leaf Or with the redd’ning cherry. Come when the year’s first blossom blows, Come when the summer gleams and glows, Come with the winter’s drifting snows, And you are welcome, welcome.

[v-ecelle]

When You Forget Me by Deborah A. Miranda

             with thanks to Pablo Neruda

the past is a poor broken basket, woven by hands that had no muscle, no song. When you forget me, every word we spoke together just before or after slow first light, lips still wet, – doe, heron, stone, prayer – erases itself from every language, as if never spoken. Extinct.

When you forget me, dream of other women, offer them the dance of your heart, recline in a meadow, drink red wine, seek another woman’s blush, what basket could hold all this desire? I’ll gather black maidenhair fern stems, redbud, bear grass from our sacred places; I’ll harvest, split and dry each piece.  My busy hands won’t miss the obsidian outline of your face.

When you forget me, that river where we first kissed won’t stop flowing down from mountains older than desire; when you forget me, the forest that cradled our creation won’t burn down. Some things last. I’ll remember what they are, one by one, as I dye my bundles, start the coil, fit weft around stave. I’ll remember how to make a life out of fragments, how to splice so skillfully, no visible break remains.

[v-ecelle]

And someone’s face, whom you love, will be as a star both intimate and ultimate, and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.

⏤Mary Oliver, “To Begin With, The Sweet Grass”

[v-ecelle]

I’m all yours. I’ll eat and drink you, wake and dream you, make you want what I want.

⏤J.D. McClatchy, THE DIALOGUE OF DESIRE AND GUILT

[v-ecelle]

in the shell of your room

we enter the ocean

pretending the outside world unreal

pretending time unreal, while the waves carry us

from one hour, to the other.. . . .. . .

not drifting, as we did on ordinary days

but breathless, the way a lover might

graze the sea

in a moment of stormful delight

only to find all that love spilled over the city.

[v-ecelle]

Irving Penn for Vogue Magazine (1970)

[v-ecelle]

on love (i) --- Christian Wiman, C. S. Lewis, Mahmoud Darwish, Thomas Merton, Frank Bidart, Pat Scheider, Julian K. Jaboe, Rainer Maria Rilke, Derek Walcott, j. p. berame (@existential-celestial)

[v-ecelle]

I received a letter from a young Ukrainian university student. It reads: "Father, when, on Wednesday, you remember my country and are able to speak to the whole world on the thousandth day of this terrible war, l ask you not to speak only of our suffering but also of our faith. Although it is imperfect, that does not diminish its value, because it paints, with painful strokes, a portrait of the Resurrected Christ. There have been too many deaths in my life recently. It is difficult to live in a city where a missile kills and wounds dozens of civilians, and you are witness to so many tears. I would have liked to flee, would have liked to go back to being a child in my mother's arms, would have liked to remain in silence and in love, but I thank God because, through this pain, I am learning greater love. Pain is not only a road to anger, and despair, if based on faith, it is a good teacher of love. Father, if pain makes you suffer, it means that you love. And so, when you speak of our pain, when you remember our thousand days of suffering, speak of our thousand days of love, too, because only love, faith, and hope give a real meaning to our wounds."

— Pope Francis

[v-ecelle]

today’s recipe for a day of rest: fresh stationery, hot tea, and a walk under an overcast sky

[v-ecelle]

misty saturdays spent alone, pressing chicory blossoms and queen anne’s lace in some of my favourite books. but he wants to eat them instead. 

[v-ecelle]

My God, he thought, I am so frightened. O my God, if you will not save my skin, make me less afraid.

—Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia, in the Queen’s Thief Series

[v-ecelle]

The thing I like most to feel is what I felt when I was seventeen, reading.

— Sheila Heti, Alphabetical Diaries (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, February 6, 2024)

[v-ecelle]

jason molina’s writing advice to matthew j barnhart via his blackberry in 2008 

[v-ecelle]

[v-ecelle]

new substack 🌀 HOW TO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR JOURNAL

[v-ecelle]

I’m a firm believer in kissing places that are usually left untouched during sex. Kissing your hips and ribs. Your spine and wrist. I want to indulge in every part of you.