THE POEMS OF OUR CLIMATEIClear water in a brilliant bowl, Pink and white carnations. The light In the room more like a snowy air, Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snow At the end of winter when afternoons return. Pink and white carnations - one desires So much more than that. The day itself Is simplified: a bowl of white, Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round, With nothing more than the carnations there. I I Say even that this complete simplicity Stripped one of all one's torments, concealed The evilly compounded, vital IAnd made it fresh in a world of white, A world of clear water, brilliant-edged, Still one would want more, one would need more, More than a world of white and snowy scents. I I I There would still remain the never-resting mind, So that one would want to escape, come back To what had been so long composed. The imperfect is our paradise. Note that, in this bitterness, delight, Since the imperfect is so hot in us, Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds. Wallace Stevens
Some Similar Quotes
  1. I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests. - Pablo Neruda
  2. It is strange how a scrap of poetry works in the mind and makes the legs move in time to it along the road. - Virginia Woolf
  3. Sweetest smile is made saddest tear-drop! - Edwin Arnold
  4. The true poem rests between the words. - Vanna Bonta
  5. Sometimes he did not know if he slept or just thought about sleep. - Mark Strand
More Quotes By Wallace Stevens
  1. The final belief is to believe in a fiction, which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else. The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe in it willingly.
  2. Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.
  3. I am the truth, since I am part of what is real, but neither more nor less than those around me.
  4. After the final no there comes a yes / And on that yes the future world depends.
  5. I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendos The blackbird whistling Or just after.
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