elf-stroke

(via)

"Dear darkening ground,
you’ve endured so patiently the walls we’ve built,
perhaps you’ll give the cities one more hour

and grant the churches and cloisters two,
And those that labor—will you let their work
grip them another five hours, or seven

before you become forest again, and widening wilderness
in that hour of inconceivable terror
when you take back your name
from all things.

Just give me a little more time!
I want to love the things
as no one has thought to love them,
until they’re worthy of you and real.

I want only seven days, seven
on which no one has ever written himself–-
seven pages of solitude."

    Rilke's Book of Hours
    Rainer Maria Rilke
    translations by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows (via wood_s lot)

"The Virginians legislated a new class of people into existence: the whites."

"Encountering a particularly huge regurgitation of literature, I glance up at the windows of the house from which it originated, wondering what happened inside to bring on this vast discharge. But the rooms are always still and dark. Always!" --George Prochnik (via wood_s lot)

"There are Japanese soldiers who, not knowing World War II had ended, lived for decades in the jungle, taking every measure to avoid detection, erasing their footprints in the undergrowth, and living on rats and toads, refusing to surrender.

They must be our example, he says. Thought has ended. Philosophy has ended. And we must live on in logic, refusing to surrender." --Pico Iyer

"The Berlin Wall was a 'rampart against fascism,' he recalls. 'When it went up on the 13th of August, 1961, I cheered.' "

(via arika okrent on twitter)

"We need to start to move beyond the idea of borders in language as we’re slowly moving beyond the concept of national borders."

"If the Democrats had a spine, they'd be painting the Republicans as soft on disease and in favor of sickness." --Slap*Happy on Metafilter