Skies Quotes

Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the skies. ~ Garth Brooks

Facilis descensus Averno:
Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
Sed revocare gradium superasque evadere ad auras,
Hoc opus, hic labor est.
(The gates of Hell are open night and day;
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way:
But to return, and view the cheerful skies,
In this task and mighty labor lies.) ~ Virgil

I went to West Texas and started writing a cycle of Americana poems after the space conjured images that, as a child, I only saw on television-John Wayne, cowboys, borderlines. But suddenly, I felt close to these once-foreign imageries and wondered how I'd changed. Each evening brought the darkest skies in the country, and I understood the expansiveness of our inner selves. Ultimately nothing divides us except the worlds and words we allow. ~ Nathalie Handal

Look at these cliffs! Some are abrupt and unpredictable. Some other are soft and with smooth slopes. Yet, they all have the same purpose: either to lure you and bring you down or to teach you how to stand up, firmly, on their rims while contemplating the horizon. Here, you have the perfect vision of the abyss beneath. the majesty of the skies above, or the endlessness of the horizon in front; but you can't see what's behind, and that's how it should be! What's the point in contemplating something that you already know and lived? Haven't your coming here made you know the paths on which you walked? That's why, what belongs to the past should remain there. The past gives us the lessons. We do not need a heavier luggage than this! ~ Irina Serban

If ever the adventure proves tiring, or you lose sight of your dream, look to the west at sunset. There, on days when the skies are clear, you might see upon the horizon a thin layer of amber mist. When it appears, you will know its purpose: it is the mist of believing. ~ Fennel Hudson

No clouds gathered in the skies and the polluted streams became clear, whilst celestial music rang through the air and the angels rejoiced with gladness. With no selfish or partial joy but for the sake of the law they rejoiced, for creation engulfed in the ocean of pain was now to obtain release. ~ Gautama Buddha

Long I have known and feared this day would come. Like the circle of Earth, the circle of life is changing. Here in the north, there are those who can still feel, see, and smell the changes wrought in and around Earth by Money Chiefs. The air is no longer clean, winter grows warmer, rivers flood without a sign, and the soil, once dark and rich, lies pale and weak. Bears, wolves, and other forest Spirits will soon go the way of the buffalo, for their food dwindles like birds that once ruled the skies. ~ Frederic M. Perrin

I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world - and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. ~ Penn Jillette

The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks,
They are all fire and every one doth shine ~ William Shakespeare

And what lies unknown within us includes such surprising things as ships that go through towns, seas that are momentarily indistinguishable from skies, fantasies that our beloved family will die in a major conflagration, and intense feelings of love sparked by contact with smooth skin. ~ Alain De Botton

Beware the wooden horse, Agamemnon King, Conqueror, for it will roar to the skies on wings of thunder and herald the death of nations. ~ David Gemmell

On the Gallows Once
Kofi Awoonor

I crossed quite a few
of your rivers, my gods,
into this plain where thirst reigns
I heard the cry of mourners
the long cooing of the African wren at dusk
the laughter of the children at dawn
had long ceased
night comes fast in our land
where indeed are the promised vistas
the open fields, blue skies, the singing birds
and abiding love?
History records acts
of heroism, barbarism
of some who had power
and abused it massively
of some whose progenitors
planned for them
the secure state of madness
from which no storm can shake them;
of some who took the last ships
disembarked on some far-off shores and forgot
of some who simply laid down the load
and went home to the ancestors ~ Kofi Awoonor

How clear, how lovely bright,
How beautiful to sight
Those beams of morning play;
How heaven laughs out with glee
Where, like a bird set free,
Up from the eastern sea
Soars the delightful day.

To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
I never kept before.

Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
Falls the remorseful day. ~ A.E. Housman

O beautiful for spacious skies, ... O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife, Who more than self their country loved, And mercy more than life! America! America! May God thy gold refine, Til all success be nobleness And every gain divine! ~ Katharine Lee Bates

The difference was principally in the invisible places toward which their respective hearts were turned. They dreamed of Cairo with its autonomous government, its army, its newspapers and its cinema, while he, facing in the same direction, dreamed just a little beyond Cairo, across the Bhar El Hamar to Mecca. They thought in terms of grievances, censorship, petitions and reforms; he, like any good Moslem who knows only the tenets of his religion, in terms of destiny and divine justice. If the word 'independence' was uttered, they saw platoons of Moslem soldiers marching through streets were all the signs were written in Arabic script, they saw factories and power plants rising from the fields; he saw skies of flame, the wings of avenging angels, and total destruction. ~ Paul Bowles

The wind sounds like a silver wire, And from beyond the noon a fire Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher The skies stoop down in their desire; And, isled in sudden seas of light, My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight, Bursts into blossom in his sight. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Imagine if Congress always put the interests of polluters ahead of the health of our families. Our rivers and lakes would be choked with sewage. Acid rain would pour down from smog-filled skies. Hundreds of thousands more of our neighbors, friends, and loved ones would be victims of cancer, heart disease, and asthma. ~ Jeff Merkley

My father was often impatient during March, waiting for winter to end, the cold to ease, the sun to reappear. March was an unpredictable month, when it was never clear what might happen. Warm days raised hopes until ice and grey skies shut over the town again. ~ Tracy Chevalier

Hello, Olympus! Aeolus, master of the winds here, with weather every twelve! We'll have a low-pressure system moving over Florida today, so expect milder temperatures since Demeter wishes to spare the citrus farmers!‖ He gestured at the blue screen, but when Jason checked the monitors, he saw that a digital image was being projected behind Aeolus, so it looked like he was standing in front of a U.S. map with animated smiley suns and frowny storm clouds. ―Along the eastern seaboard - oh, hold on.‖ He tapped his earpiece. ―Sorry, folks! Poseidon is angry with Miami today, so it looks like that Florida freeze is back on! Sorry, Demeter. Over in the Midwest, I'm not sure what St. Louis did to offend Zeus, but you can expect winter storms! Boreas himself is being called down to punish the area with ice. Bad news, Missouri! No, wait. Hephaestus feels sorry for central Missouri, so you all will have much more moderate temperatures and sunny skies. ~ Rick Riordan

The universe is littered with them: hidden villages, windswept little towns under wide skies, isolated cabins on chilly mountains, whose only mark on history is to be the incredibly ordinary place where something extraordinary started to happen. Often there is no more than a little plaque to reveal that, against all gynecological probability, someone very famous was born halfway up a wall. Mist ~ Terry Pratchett

I am a city of sounds.
I will keep you safe.
I know I am supposed to feel ugly.
They all tell me that no woman
should look so well-traveled,
but they do not know.
I am earth. I am sun and skies.
I am the high road, the low road.
I am every poem about skin.
I am a world that cannot be explored in one day.
I am not a place for cowards. ~ Caitlyn Siehl

The Open Skies issue is something that's ongoing and we understand that there are issues in Australia that need to be sorted out. It's something that I think over time there's an opportunity for us and we'll work on that in a progressive way. ~ Jenny Shipley

Always seek less turbulent skies.
Hurt. Fly above it.
Betrayal. Fly above it.
Anger. Fly above it.
You are the one who is flying the plane. ~ Marianne Williamson

Beautiful isles! beneath the sunset skies tall, silver-shafted palm-trees rise, between full orange-trees that shade the living colonade. ~ William C. Bryant

People ... of the universe! Tonight ... is the night.. when the skies will open, and spray forth a divine hand with pointed finger! And it will say ... everybody ... you're not just a duck ... YOU ARE HUMAN! YOU ARE HUMAAAAN!!! ~ Thurston Moore

I saw it from that hidden, silent place
Where the old wood half shuts the meadow in.
It shone through all the sunset's glories - thin
At first, but with a slowly brightening face.
Night came, and that lone beacon, amber-hued,
Beat on my sight as never it did of old;
The evening star - but grown a thousandfold
More haunting in this hush and solitude.
It traced strange pictures on the quivering air -
Half-memories that had always filled my eyes -
Vast towers and gardens; curious seas and skies
Of some dim life - I never could tell where.
But I knew that through the cosmic dome
Those rays were calling from my far, lost home. ~ H.P. Lovecraft

Fourteen is the age when time first starts to make its presence felt. Time took on such a variety of hues in those days that even my frozen mind sometimes reflected the colours of the world around me, and I could feel my thoughts fluttering in the humid, salty breeze. At such moments, when the brilliant blue skies, the flaming carpets beneath the Gulmohur trees in the school grounds and the nut-brown twinkle in Sonia's eyes splashed into the moments of my life, I felt alive. Only time had no colour in the library. In the library, time simply ceased to be. ~ Indu Muralidharan

They do not pretend to deserve me; better yet, they do not even pretend that they can save me. They do not view me as a broken, feathered thing they can mend up if they scoop me into their hands and show me enough attention. In time, they know that I will stretch across the skies again, but not before I'm ready.
- not before I mend my own wing. ~ Amanda Lovelace

The man who had abused him would ask, "I abused you yesterday, why did you not reply yesterday? You are very strange." No one waits for a second when you abuse him. He retorts immediately."
Junnaid answered, "My master taught me not to hurry in anything. Take some time. I must wait a little when someone insults me. If I were to give an immediate answer, the heat of the happening would catch hold of me; the smoke would blind my eyes. So I have to wait and let the cloud pass. When twenty-four hours have passed and the skies are clear again, then I can give my reply in full consciousness. Now I realize how tricky my guru was. Because I have never been able to answer my opponents since then."
Is it possible to hold on to anger for twenty-four hours? It is impossible to maintain it for twenty-four minutes or even twenty-four seconds. The truth is that, even if you hold back and watch for a single second, the anger vanishes.
But you do not wait even for a moment. A person abuses you – as if someone switches the button, and the fan starts whirring. There is not the slightest gap between the two, no distance! And you pride yourself in your alertness! You have no control of yourself. How can an unconscious person be master of himself? Anybody can push the button and goad him into action. Someone comes and flatters you, and you are filled with joy; you are happy. Someone insults you, you are full of tears. Are you your own master or anyone can manipulate you? You are the ~ Osho

If Nature here wishes to make a mountain, she runs a range for five hundred miles; if a plain, she levels eighty; if a rock, she tilts five thousand feet of strata on end; our skies are higher and more intensely blue; our waves larger than others; our rivers fiercer. There is nothing measured, small nor petty in South Africa. ~ Olive Schreiner

Then felt I like like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Like stout Cortes when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific-and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise
Silent upon a peak in Darien ~ John Keats

I look to the skies
and expect artificial passenger pigeons,
blackening the light,
people taking potshots for kicks
imagining one day they will be extinct. ~ Carl-John X. Veraja

Her mighty lakes, like oceans of liquid silver; her mountains, with bright aerial tints; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility; her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad, deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean; her trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its magnificence; her skies, kindling with the magic of summer clouds and glorious sunshine - no, never need an American look beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery. ~ Washington Irving

She wanted to scream her grief to the skies and wail like an animal, but she couldn't. ~ Jennifer Donnelly

When one that holds communion with the skies
Has fill'd his urn where these pure waters rise,
And once more mingles with us meaner things,
'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings. ~ William Cowper

In Chapel Hill among a friendly folk, this old university, the first state university to open its doors, stands on a hill set in the midst of beautiful forests under the skies that give their color and their charm to the life of youth gathered here ... there is music in the air of the place. ~ Frank Porter Graham

You could wish for brighter moonlit skies
But from a fair distance, they all look pretty much like mere streetlights. ~ Sanhita Baruah

Until the Tower of Babel, humans had only planted and sown, reaped and harvested. Farmers are dependent upon nature and, in their dependency, turn to God. Builders, however, seek to control nature. And in their sense of might they tend to overplay their own role and at times to believe that they are no longer dependent on God. "Come let us build a city and a tower with its top in Heaven" (Genesis 11:4). The Talmud adds (Sanhedrin 109a): "We will build a tower that reaches so high that we will be able to come to the very throne of the Almighty and topple him." The metaphor is profound. The scientist says if we build high enough, if we indicate our ultimate strength, if we reach the skies and soar to the very Heavens, then we, too, with Yuri Gagarin, the first Russian cosmonaut, can say with unbounded egoism, "There is no God, because I was in the Heavens and I did not see Him." "Let us make us a name" was the cry of the first technological wizards. "We will dethrone God." And so they built the Tower of Babel. ~ Benjamin Blech

I am a mixture of contradictory elements. Equal parts earth and fire, melancholy and choler, I fear. But it is more that warmth and blue skies stir the blood, do you not think? ~ S.J. Parris

Tell me why the stars do shine,
Tell me why the ivy twines,
Tell me what makes skies so blue,
And I'll tell you why I love you.
Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine,
Tropisms make the ivy twine,
Raleigh scattering make skies so blue,
Testicular hormones are why I love you. ~ Isaac Asimov

You have lost faith in anything great; you are doomed, then, doomed to perish unless that faith returns, like a comet from unknown skies. ~ Friedrich Holderlin

But genius, and even great talent, springs less from seeds of intellect and social refinement superior to those of other people than from the faculty of transforming and transposing them. To heat a liquid with an electric lamp requires not the strongest lamp possible, but one of which the current can cease to illuminate, can be diverted so as to give heat instead of light. To mount the skies it is not necessary to have the most powerful of motors, one must have a motor which, instead of continuing to run along the earth's surface, intersecting with a vertical line the horizontal line which it began by following, is capable of converting its speed into lifting power. Similarly, the men who produce works of genius are not those who live in the most delicate atmosphere, whose conversation is the most brilliant or their culture the most extensive, but those who have had the power, ceasing suddenly to live only for themselves, to transform their personality into a sort of mirror, in such a way that their life, however mediocre it may be socially and even, in a sense, intellectually, is reflected by it, genius consisting in reflecting power and not int he intrinsic quality of the scene reflected. ~ Marcel Proust

All nature mourns, the skies relent in showers; hushed are the birds, and closed the drooping flowers. ~ Alexander Pope

So you find Miss Mercer beautiful?"
The buzzing in Spencer's head formed the words, "'She walks in beauty like the night/Of cloudless climes and starry skies.'"
"My God, now you're quoting poetry."
Had he said that aloud? Bloody hell. Spencer brandished his empty mug at his brother. "I always quote verse when I'm foxed."
"You must be very foxed to quote that idiot Byron. Or very impressed by Miss Mercer's looks. ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Hark! the hours are softly calling Bidding Spring arise To listen to the rain-drops falling From the cloudy skies To listen to Earth's weary voices Louder every day Bidding her no longer linger On her charm'd way But hasten to her task of beauty Scarcely yet begun. ~ Adelaide Anne Procter

And when the clouds come, I sink; and when the skies dawn, I rise. ~ Toni Orrill

I once found myself conspiring with a British Cabinet Minister as to how we might persuade Her Majesty's Treasury to cough up more money for the British Travel advertising in America. Said he, "Why does any American in his senses spend his vacation in the cold damp of an English summer when he could equally well bask under Italian skies? I can only suppose that your advertising is the answer." Damn right. ~ David Ogilvy

Spring is the sound of birds chirping, the taste of cherry juice, the feel of grass on bare feet, the sight of pink roses and blue skies, and the feel of dandelion fuzz. Spring, in other words, is a welcome, wondrous sensory overload. ~ Toni Sorenson

As soon as I take down her book and open it ... My skies rise higher and hang younger stars. ~ Eavan Boland

Murali observed that the lazy breath of air that half-tried to wake up the leaves of the giant banyan tree was no less significant than a comet blazing across the skies. It was the same great cosmic intent that drove both. Apart ~ Manu Bhattathiri

Nothing ever built arose to touch the skies unless some man dreamed that it should, some man believed that it could, and some man willed that it must. ~ Charles Kettering

Even if the skies were shorter than my knees, I would not kneel. ~ Cyrus The Great

As long as skies are blue, and fields are green
Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow,
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

You will soon learn that there ARE no strange stars, no alien skies"
- No?
"Only skies and stars, in all their varieties. Each one with its own flavour, and all flavours good"
- Now YOU think like a tree. Flavours! Of skies!
"I have tasted the heat of many stars, and all of them were sweet ~ Orson Scott Card

Huge clouds were already careering in the skies, and distant flashes announced a tempest. About ten o'clock, the storm burst forth; and Milady found some consolation in seeing Nature partake of the commotion within her. The thunder bellowed in the air like the angry passions in her soul; and it seemed to her as if the passing gusts disturbed her brow, as they did the trees of which they bent down the branches and sept off the leaves. She howled like the tempest, but her voice was unheard Amidst the vast voice of Nature, which also appeared to be herself groaning in despair. ~ Alexandre Dumas

Just get out your magic pencil and erase the cloudy skies, and just draw a picture of me saying, I apologize. ~ Bill Anderson

I? What am I?" roared the President, and he rose slowly to an incredible height, like some enormous wave about to arch above them and break. "You want to know what I am, do you? Bull, you are a man of science. Grub in the roots of those trees and find out the truth about them. Syme, you are a poet. Stare at those morning clouds. But I tell you this, that you will have found out the truth of the last tree and the top-most cloud before the truth about me. You will understand the sea, and I shall be still a riddle; you shall know what the stars are, and not know what I am. Since the beginning of the world all men have hunted me like a wolf - kings and sages, and poets and lawgivers, all the churches, and all the philosophies. But I have never been caught yet, and the skies will fall in the time I turn to bay. I have given them a good run for their money, and I will now. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Each evening the night swallowed the sun and gave the raven the sun's energy. He stored this power in his wings, tinged with the blue of Alaskan skies. ~ Suzy Davies

Of the colors, blue and green have the greatest emotional range. Sad reds and melancholy yellows are difficult to turn up. Among the ancient elements, blue occurs everywhere: in ice and water, in the flame as purely as in the flower, overhead and inside caves, covering fruit and oozing out of clay. Although green enlivens the earth and mixes in the ocean, and we find it, copperish, in fire; green air, green skies, are rare. Gray and brown are widely distributed, but there are no joyful swatches of either, or any of exuberant black, sullen pink, or acquiescent orange. Blue is therefore most suitable as the color of interior life. Whether slick light sharp high bright thin quick sour new and cool or low deep sweet dark soft slow smooth heavy old and warm: blue moves easily among them all, and all profoundly qualify our states of feeling. ~ William H Gass

[F]riends praise your abilities to the skies, submit to you in argument, and seem to have the greatest deference for you; but, though they may ask it, you never find them following your advice upon their own affairs; nor allowing you to manage your own. ~ William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne

This is my delight, thus to wait and watch at the wayside where shadow chases light and the rain comes in the wake of the summer.

Messengers, with tidings from unknown skies, greet me and speed along the road. My heart is glad within, and the breath of the passing breeze is sweet.

From dawn till dusk I sit here before my door, and I know that of a sudden the happy moment will arrive when I shall see.

In the meanwhile I smile and I sing all alone. In the meanwhile the air is filling with the perfume of promise. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Once upon a time
There was a friend
Who poured some ink
To a pen, which had been dried up

Since then
There are pages, and books
Cluttered by scribbling
With or without a meaning

When the ink was done
Scribbling started
In the earth, dust covered
In the tranquil grounds of the temple
And in the naked skies
Among floating clouds

Mesmerized by the dawn of love
On top of mountains
Like a fairy spreading her wings
On fluttering wings of butterflies
In paths, under the starry skies
On piano keys, playing without a tune
On sprays of vibrant blooms
Even without a sweet fragrance

Even among the debris, pungent
flowing down the drain
Among the eyes filled with emptiness
Walking down the streets,
In the battle field, drenched with blood
Waiting for a flying bullet, which brings death….

There is a poem
Each and every moment
Each and every day!

(Translated by Manel K R Fernando) ~ Shasika Amali Munasinghe

Here he was holding the clear proof of the existence of other skies, but at the same time without having to ascend beyond the celestial spheres, for he intuited many worlds in a piece of coral. Was there any need to calculate the number of forms which the atoms of the Universe could create
burning at the stake all those who said their number was not finite
when it sufficed to meditate for years on one of these marine objects to realize how the deviation of a single atom, whether willed by God or prompted by Chance, could generate inconceivable Milky Ways? ~ Umberto Eco

In Adam's fall We sinned all. In the new Adam's rise, We shall all reach the skies. ~ Henry David Thoreau

We have given you a world as contradictory as a female, as cabbalistic as a male, a conscienceless hermaphrodite who plays heaven off against hell, hell off against heaven, revolving in the ballroom of the skies glittering with conflict as diamonds: we have wasted paradox and mystery on you when all you ask us for is cause and effect! ~ Christopher Fry

(a) Are the skies you sleep under likely to open up for weeks on end?
(b) Is the ground you walk on likely to tremble and split?
(c) Is there a chance (and please check the box, no matter how small that chance seems) that the ominous mountain casting a midday shadow over your home might one day erupt with no rhyme or reason?

Because if the answer is yes to one or all of these questions, then the life you lead is a midnight thing, always a hair's breadth from the witching hour; it is volatile, it is threadbare; it is carefree in the true sense of that term; it is light, losable like a key or a hair clip. And it is lethargy: why not sit all morning, all day, all year, under the same cypress tree drawing the figure eight in the dust? More than that, it is disaster, it is chaos: why not overthrow a government on a whim, why not blind the man you hate, why not go mad, go gibbering through the town like a loon, waving your hands, tearing your hair? There's nothing to stop you---or rather anything could stop you, any hour, any minute. That feeling. That's the real difference in a life. ~ Zadie Smith

You know, for myself, my personal journey has been a very fortunate one and I would say to people it's like the stars lined up and the skies opened up and the sun shined and I met the right people - was at the right time. And, most importantly, you know I love what I do. ~ Phillip Lim

It used to be that, in astronomy, a small team of people could look at photos of a few thousand galaxies and classify and catalog them relatively easily. But now, with a new generation of robotic telescopes scanning the skies constantly and producing millions of images, that's become next to impossible. ~ Peter Diamandis

We crave rich variegations of light. Too much time in one ambience, and we long for something new. Perhaps this explains the sensory ennui of those who live under unchanging skies. The monotony of blank sunny skies or of an endless cloud ceiling deprives us of the visual diversity we desire. ~ David George Haskell

No known roof is as beautiful as the skies above. ~ Micheal O Muircheartaigh

The words came so fast they seemed to roll down hill. Nobody ever calls it all that; it's just spring wheat, but I like the words. They heap up and make a picture of a spring that's slow to come, when the ground stays frozen late into March and the air is raw, and the skies are sulky and dark ~ Mildred Walker

Roman Centurion's Song"

LEGATE, I had the news last night - my cohort ordered home
By ships to Portus Itius and thence by road to Rome.
I've marched the companies aboard, the arms are stowed below:
Now let another take my sword. Command me not to go!

I've served in Britain forty years, from Vectis to the Wall,
I have none other home than this, nor any life at all.
Last night I did not understand, but, now the hour draws near
That calls me to my native land, I feel that land is here.

Here where men say my name was made, here where my work was done;
Here where my dearest dead are laid - my wife - my wife and son;
Here where time, custom, grief and toil, age, memory, service, love,
Have rooted me in British soil. Ah, how can I remove?

For me this land, that sea, these airs, those folk and fields suffice.
What purple Southern pomp can match our changeful Northern skies,
Black with December snows unshed or pearled with August haze -
The clanging arch of steel-grey March, or June's long-lighted days?

You'll follow widening Rhodanus till vine and olive lean
Aslant before the sunny breeze that sweeps Nemausus clean
To Arelate's triple gate; but let me linger on,
Here where our stiff-necked British oaks confront Euroclydon!

You'll take the old Aurelian Road through shore-descending pines
Where, blue as any peacock's ne ~ Rudyard Kipling

growing up we always had a pack of dogs, usually four
held in prestige among many familiars
them and a few cats we let indoors
though we loved every bird, mouse, tadpole, crayfish
froze in a spring frost we grew more conscious of weather
wide skies read power lines hum dove coos
the leaves turnt dirt melt change on the breeze creaks
and rain the gravel trucks of spring full by slow
then empties in summer barrelling too fast past our hillbilly stake
mother threw potatoes later hard to explain
to the police who got called in from a county over
drove out to say, "ma'am, you can't throw potatoes at trucks"
then all polite as we stood with our pack and stuck to our guns ~ Cecily Nicholson

I'll meet the raging of the skies, but not an angry father. ~ Thomas Campbell

Man was sent into the world to be a growing and exhaustless force. The world was spread out around him to be seized and conquered. Realms of infinite truth burst open above him, inviting him to tread those shining coasts along which Newton dropped his plummet, and Herschel sailed,
a Columbus of the skies. ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin

THE BARROW

In this high field strewn with stones
I walk by a green mound,
Its edges sheared by the plough.
Crumbs of animal bone
Lie smashed and scattered round
Under the clover leaves
And slivers of flint seem to grow
Like white leaves among green.
In the wind, the chestnut heaves
Where a man's grave has been.

Whatever the barrow held
Once, has been taken away:
A hollow of nettles and dock
Lies at the centre, filled
With rain from a sky so grey
It reflects nothing at all.
I poke in the crumbled rock
For something they left behind
But after that funeral
There is nothing at all to find.

On the map in front of me
The gothic letters pick out
Dozens of tombs like this,
Breached, plundered, left empty,
No fragments littered about
Of a dead and buried race
In the margins of histories.
No fragments: these splintered bones
Construct no human face,
These stones are simply stones.

In museums their urns lie
Behind glass, and their shaped flints
Are labelled like butterflies.
All that they did was die,
And all that has happened since
Means nothing to this place.
Above long clouds, the skies
Turn to a brilliant red
And show in the water's face
One living, and not these dead."

- Anthony Thwaite, from The Owl In The Tree ~ Anthony Thwaite

Before the day there was only endless night. When the stars rained down from the skies, and giants and other unfathomable creatures roamed the land, there was a goddess who ruled over them all because she had been clever enough to figure out the secret of time and how to walk between worlds. ~ Scarlett Amaris

I am exalted over all the nations, my glory above the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before me; strength and glory are in my sanctuary. I wrap myself in light as with a garment; I stretch out the heavens like a tent and lay the beams of my upper chambers on their waters. I make the clouds my chariot and ride on the wings of the wind. I make winds my messengers, flames of fire my servants. The heavens declare my glory; the skies proclaim the work of my hands. ~ Zhang Yun

Bringing back the Golden Fleece," I repeated, mocking him. "As if it exists."
Castor frowned. "What's biting you? Of course it exists! We told you what Jason said. It belonged to a marvelous ram sent by the gods to rescue two royal children, Phrixus and Helle, from their murderous stepmother. A pity it wasn't a perfect rescue. Phrixus reached Colchis safely, but his sister, Helle, fell off in mid-flight and drowned. Jason says that's why the place where she plunged into the sea's called the Hellespont. If that doesn't prove the story's true, what will satisfy you?"
"Anyone can give a place a name," I said, rolling my eyes. "When I get home, I'll name that olive grove near our training ground Wolf Forest and see what happens. A ram with a fleece of real gold, a flying ram that could carry the children through the skies to Colchis, where there are dragons, oh yes, that's believable! That's worth risking your lives for on a voyage across the world! I'll bet you don't care if that story's true or not. You just want an excuse to go off chasing fame!"
Polydeuces set a honey cake on my already heaping plate. "There must be something waiting for us in Colchis, little sister," he said gently. "Maybe not the gold fleece of a flying ram, but something. Why would Jason go to the trouble and expense of outfitting a ship for such a long, dangerous voyage otherwise?" He smiled wistfully and added, "You mustn't worry about us. We'll come back; we'll be fine."
He was right ~ Esther M. Friesner

Who do you suppose decided that the birds are free? Even if they can fly the skies unless they have a destination and a branch upon which to perch and rest their wings they might even come to resent having those wings. True freedom ... true freedom may be having somewhere to return to. ~ Kazuya Minekura

Jake, think of the population of this planet for one moment; we live for money, we fight for land then divide the land up and establish different currencies represented by different flags. The governments chosen to lead us are rife with corruption and at any given time one will be at war with another. And despite knowing that we are damaging the very environment that sustains us, we continue to pollute our skies and oceans. ~ Vincent Amato

Columbus found a world, and had no chart save one that Faith deciphered in the skies. ~ George Santayana

But I,
from poetry's skies,
plunge into communism,
because
without it
I feel no love. ~ Vladimir Mayakovsky

There are never clear skies on Avon, no blue, no stars. But we don't give up hope, and we use those words to remind ourselves. Clear skies will come, one day. ~ Amie Kaufman

Muhammad Iqbal, who had spent three rewarding years as a student in Europe in the first decade of the twentieth century, now wrote of it in the satirical tradition of the Illahabadi:
The West develops wonderful new skills
In this as in so many other fields
Its submarines are crocodiles
Its bombers rain destruction from the skies
Its gases so obscure the sky
They blind the sun's world-seeing eye
Dispatch this old fool to the West
To learn the art of killing fast- and best
On his previous trips to the West, Liang, like Tagore and Iqbal, had been a qualified admirer. During his longest sojourn there, he began to develop grave doubts about the civilization that had so blithely thrown away the fruits of progress and rationalism and sunk into barbarism. The 'materialist' West had managed to subdue nature through science and technology and created a Darwinian universe of conflict between individuals, classes and nations. But to what effect? Its materialistic people, constantly desiring ever-new things and constantly being frustrated, were worn out by war, were afflicted with insecurity, and were as far from happiness as ever. ~ Pankaj Mishra

Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies! But beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of love arise. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Where London's column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies. ~ Alexander Pope

In Paris, Julien's position with regard to Madame de Renal would very soon have been simplified; but in Paris love is the child of the novels. The young tutor and his timid mistress would have found in three or four novels, and even in the lyrics of the Gymnase, a clear statement of their situation. The novels would have outlined for them the part to be played, shown them the model to copy; and this model, sooner or later, albeit without the slightest pleasure, and perhaps with reluctance, vanity would have compelled Julien to follow.

In a small town of the Aveyron or the Pyrenees, the slightest incident would have been made decisive by the ardour of the climate. Beneath our more sombre skies, a penniless young man, who is ambitious only because the refinement of his nature puts him in need of some of those pleasures which money provides, is in daily contact with a woman of thirty who is sincerely virtuous, occupied with her children, and never looks to novels for examples of conduct. Everything goes slowly, everything happens by degrees in the provinces: life is more natural. ~ Stendhal

NAMING THE EARTH
(a poem of light for national poetry day)

And the world will be born again
in circles of steaming breath
and beams of light
as each one of us directs
our inner eye
upon its name.

Hear the cry of wings,
the sigh of leaves and grass,
smell the new sweet mist rising
as the pathway is cleared at last.

Stones stand ready -
they have known
since ages and ages ago
that they were not alone.

Water carries the planet's energy
into skies and down
to earth and bones.

The cold parts steadily
as we come together,
bodies and hearts warm,
hands tingling.
We are silent
but our eyes are singing.

We look, we feel, we know,
we trust each other's souls,
we have no need to speak.
Not now, but later,
when the time is right,
the name will ring
within the iron core
of each other's listening -
and the very earth's being.

Every creature, every plant,
will hear it calling,
tolling like a bell -
a sound we've always felt
but never dared to hope
to hear reverberating -
true at last, at every level
of existence.

The poets come together
to open the intimate centre.
Believe
in life and air -
breathe the light itself,
for these are the energies
and rhythms that we need
to see, to touch, to reach,
t ~ Jay Woodman

Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank You for this place in which we dwell, for the love accorded us this day, for the hope with which we expect the morrow; for the health, the work, the food and the bright skies that make our lives delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare us to our friends, soften us to our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavors; if it may not, give us strength to endure that which is to come that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and in all changes of fortune and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another. We beseech of you this help and mercy for Christ's sake. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Uglier things have been spotted in the skies, but not by reliable witnesses. ~ Douglas Adams

The next person who tells me something like, "Squiggle-fuck the rightwise cock-swatter with a starboard jib," is going to get a knife to the throat. ~ Scott Lynch

Being a Negro in America means trying to smile when you want to cry. It means trying to hold on to physical life amid psychological death. It means the pain of watching your children grow up with clouds of inferiority in their mental skies. It means having their legs off, and then being condemned for being a cripple. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

In the godforsaken, obscene quicksand of life, there is a deafening alleluia rising from the souls of those who weep, and of those who weep with those who weep. If you watch, you will see The hand of God putting the stars back in their skies one by one. ~ Ann Weems

Do you want me, Shea?" This time his voice was hesitant, as if for all his strength, for all his power, one word from her would bring him crashing down. He was kneeling at her feet, his beloved face - so ravaged by torment, so beautifully male, so sensually Carpathian - staring up at her. He was lost without her; it was there for her to see. Raw. Stark. His total vulnerability. For just one moment the wind seemed to cease, and the storm held itself still as if the very skies were awaiting her answer.
"You can't possibly know how much I want you, Jacques, even if you're reading my mind. ~ Christine Feehan

flying robots from an alien power regularly strike down from the skies and kill Pakistani citizens. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Those who keep speaking about the sun while walking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day. ~ Henri Nouwen

LOOK AROUND. GAME DEAD, RIVERS BLACK, LAND CHOKED WITH WEED. SKIES BLEEDING, RED AS BLOOD. FOR WHAT?
YOUR KIND ARE BLIND. YOU SEE ONLY THE NOW. NEVER THE WILL BE.
BUT SOON YOU WILL. WHEN ALL IS GONE, WHEN THERE ARE SO MANY MONKEY-CHILDREN THAT YOU MURDER FOR A SCRAP OF LAND, A DROP OF CLEAN WATER, THEN YOU WILL SEE. ~ Jay Kristoff

You meaner beauties of the night, That poorly satisfy our eyes More by your number than your light; You common people of the skies, What are you when the sun shall rise? This was printed with music as early as 1624, in East's Sixth Set of Books, and is found in many manuscripts. ~ Henry Wotton