THE POEMS OF OUR CLIMATEIClear water in a brilliant bowl, Pink and white carnations. The lightIn the room more like a snowy air, Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snowAt the end of winter when afternoons return.Pink and white carnations - one desiresSo much more than that. The day itselfIs simplified: a bowl of white, Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,With nothing more than the carnations there.IISay even that this complete simplicityStripped one of all one's torments, concealedThe 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.IIIThere would still remain the never-resting mind,So that one would want to escape, come backTo 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.

THE POEMS OF OUR CLIMATEIClear water in a brilliant bowl, Pink and white carnations. The lightIn the room more like a snowy air, Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snowAt the end of winter when afternoons return.Pink and white carnations - one desiresSo much more than that. The day itselfIs simplified: a bowl of white, Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,With nothing more than the carnations there.IISay even that this complete simplicityStripped one of all one's torments, concealedThe 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.IIIThere would still remain the never-resting mind,So that one would want to escape, come backTo 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
Save QuoteView Quote
Save Quote
Similar Quotes by wallace-stevens

(Wallace) Stevens turns to the idea of the weather precisely as the religious idea turns to the idea of God.

Harold Bloom, Wallace Stevens: The Poems of Our Climate
Save QuoteView Quote

(Wallace) Stevens turns to the idea of the weather precisely as the religious man turns to the idea of God.

Harold Bloom, Wallace Stevens: The Poems of Our Climate
Save QuoteView Quote

A poem is a meteor.

Wallace Stevens
Save QuoteView Quote

After the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future of the world hangs.

Wallace Stevens
Save QuoteView Quote

Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.

Wallace Stevens
Save QuoteView Quote

Money is a kind of poetry.

Wallace Stevens
Save QuoteView Quote

A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.

Wallace Stevens
Save QuoteView Quote

In poetry, you must love the words, the ideas and the images and rhythms with all your capacity to love anything at all.

Wallace Stevens
Save QuoteView Quote

The imagination is man's power over nature.

Wallace Stevens
Save QuoteView Quote

To regard the imagination as metaphysics is to think of it as part of life, and to think of it as part of life is to realize the extent of artifice. We live in the mind.

Wallace Stevens
Save QuoteView Quote
Related Topics to wallace-stevens Quotes