If organic farming is the natural way, shouldn’t organic produce just be called “produce” and make the pesticide-laden stuff take the burden of
—Terri Guillemets
favorites
The chaos-harmony of life
I swing like a kid
and fall like an adult;
cry tears of gratitude
and pray in smiles;
hug and love, and later
hide under the covers—
wildly and humbly living
from dawn to the stars,
and ever back again
—Terri Guillemets
Plexus
we feel poetry and art
in the sensitive veins
that run through soul and
carry not blood but spirit
—Terri Guillemets
Symptoms, waiting for signs
I love the body. Flesh is so honest, and organs do not lie.
—Terri Guillemets
Falling
Fear is imagination falling off a cliff.
—Terri Guillemets
Dock & thistle
Driving down the wrong road and knowing it,
The fork years behind, how many have thought
To pull up on the shoulder and leave the car
Empty, strike out across the fields; and how many
Are still mazed among dock and thistle,
Seeking the road they should have taken?
—Damon Knight (1922–2002), The Man in the Tree, 1984
Tuition
“If you ever change your mind… you’re not stuck with it. You’ve got a lot of choices. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you’re not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice.”
—Steven D. Woodhull
Pain & struggle
We can’t always see the scatters and tatters of a broken heart. Kindness is due to all fellow beings — we never know the invisible hurts they’re enduring.
—Terri Guillemets
Sepulturæ
Our bodies are the burial grounds of dead time.
—Terri Guillemets
“Time! where didst thou those years inter
Which I have seene decease?” —Wm. Habington
Bartleby
How can something bother you if you won’t let it?
—Terri Guillemets
Run for it!
Chase down your passion like it’s the last bus of the night.
—Terri Guillemets
Fortunate misfortunes
Death bumps into life many times as just a passerby — says excuse me then goes on his way.
—Terri Guillemets
Poetherapy
Writing poetry
is letting go —
once the words leave your pen
they’re out of your soul —
and the therapy has begun.
—Terri Guillemets
Passed down
To journal is a present of the past to your future self.
—Terri Guillemets
Proof of youth
Be thou not ashamed of lust —
desire was born in primal dust
it mingled with the seas of life
to make the mud we know as love
—Terri Guillemets
Freedumb
To burn one book is to burn the entire library.
—Terri Guillemets
Time for gratitude
There’s nothing like a mama-hug.
—Terri Guillemets
Who’s there?
Art is when you hear a knocking from your soul — and you answer.
—Terri Guillemets
Tired of trying
Even the sun can’t shine on an entire world at once.
—Terri Guillemets
@Risk
Life is like running with scissors
naked through freezing blizzards
—Terri Guillemets
Chasing the past
Chasing the past, I stumbled into the future.
—Terri Guillemets
P.S. Thanks so much to Rebecca for letting me know that this quote was used in the television show Being Erica. In the episode “Plenty of Fish,”
Myelin
I love you with all my bones — the heart is too ephemeral.
—Terri Guillemets
In pieces
The emotions are part of the wound.
—Terri Guillemets
Illumination
As far as the Moon is concerned, he is always full.
—Terri Guillemets
Sparks & sizzle
Two people who have chemistry evolve quickly to biology.
—Terri Guillemets