Furl Quotes

“My hands trembled, so I took a deep drag to calm my frayed nerves. I just wanted to forget that terrible sight, but questions multiplied in my mind as the smoke furled.”

“I have studied many timesThe marble which was chiseled for me—A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.In truth it pictures not my destinationBut my life.For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.And now I know that we must lift the sailAnd catch the winds of destinyWherever they drive the boat.To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,But life without meaning is the tortureOf restlessness and vague desire—It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.”

“At the root of the tree at the heart of the world,With a chain round his neck, the Wolf lies curled. His gleaming teeth and jaws are furled,And the sun shall rise in the morning. His chain, it is forged of the nerve of a bear,Of the voice of a fish, and a girl's chin-hair. His chain, it is light and strong and fair,And the sun shall rise in the morning. With a mountain's root, and a cat's foot-fall,And the spit of a bird, he is held in thrall, Though iron could bind him never at all, And the sun shall rise in the morning. The sun shall rise, the stars shall fade,For the binding which the good gods madeStill loops the Wolf in its lovely braid, And the sun shall rise in the morning.”

“I wanted to write you a love poemBut my heart feels out of tuneSo I coax my breath into the darkness of my rib cage And invite it to fan openMaybe I would say something like,"One day, I would like to fall in love with you,"And here I pause while the tears that have been threatening to rain down all day swell high in my chest, blurring my vision"One day, I would like to fall in love with you,"I will start writing again, & continue,"wherever you are, whoever you are, but in this moment, I will fall in love with me."My brow furls ever so slightly, because that is not what I expected to sayI pause again & allow the container to soften, for the edges to get blurryAnd the tears, one by one spill overAnd all the holding of the day crumples awayAnd I am me again & you are you again,too”

“All at once, something wonderful happened, although at first, it seemed perfectly ordinary. A female goldfinch suddenly hove into view. She lighted weightlessly on the head of a bankside purple thistle and began emptying the seedcase, sowing the air with down. The lighted frame of my window filled. The down rose and spread in all directions, wafting over the dam’s waterfall and wavering between the tulip trunks and into the meadow. It vaulted towards the orchard in a puff; it hovered over the ripening pawpaw fruit and staggered up the steep faced terrace. It jerked, floated, rolled, veered, swayed. The thistle down faltered down toward the cottage and gusted clear to the woods; it rose and entered the shaggy arms of pecans. At last it strayed like snow, blind and sweet, into the pool of the creek upstream, and into the race of the creek over rocks down. It shuddered onto the tips of growing grasses, where it poised, light, still wracked by errant quivers. I was holding my breath. Is this where we live, I thought, in this place in this moment, with the air so light and wild? The same fixity that collapses stars and drives the mantis to devour her mate eased these creatures together before my eyes: the thick adept bill of the goldfinch, and the feathery coded down. How could anything be amiss? If I myself were lighter and frayed, I could ride these small winds, too, taking my chances, for the pleasure of being so purely played. The thistle is part of Adam’s curse. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” A terrible curse: But does the goldfinch eat thorny sorrow with the thistle or do I? If this furling air is fallen, then the fall was happy indeed. If this creekside garden is sorrow, then I seek martyrdom. I was weightless; my bones were taut skins blown with buoyant gas; it seemed that if I inhaled too deeply, my shoulders and head would waft off. Alleluia.”