Lisa Suhair Majaj Quotes

how a word transforms us
seedling taking delicate hold
or a weed choking the tender plants
news enters us and puts down roots

The distance between one breath and another
is like the miles starlight travels to reach
my dreams.

ground resilient beneath our feet, sky
glimmering
between branches of trees older than any of us.

what's left but
shards of memory
smoothed and hoarded,
shrapnel griefs,
a few regrets?

May we all fit together like this: trees, birds, sky,
people, separate elements in a living portrait,
outlines smoothed by the forgiving wash
of lingering light. Whatever the skins we live in,
the names we choose, the gods we claim or disavow,
may we be like grains of sand on the beach at night:
a hundred million separate particles
creating a single expanse on which to lie back
and study the stars. And may we remember the generosity
of light: how it travels through unimaginable darkness,
age after age, to light our small human night.

Once she could have held anything steady
and safe: a glass of tea, her brother's baby.
Now her hands shake at the weight of a fork.

Bless poetry books that cross oceans
in battered envelopes,
bearing small flames of words.

We learned to let our faces hide
our selves, to speak our story in a private
tongue, the past a shadow in our bones.

till the moon rises,
the night opens,
and all the stars shine out.

These words are the weight
cupped in our palms:
the small broken note of freedom.

I find inspiration in anything that sparks attention and emotion and associations—an object, a news article, a natural scene, a sound, an odor. Going for walks sharpens my awareness as well as freeing my mind to wander. I think losing my parents so early, and keeping so many mementos from them around me in my daily life, helped shape my understanding of how meaning is embedded in the simplest of things. I use potholders my mother crocheted, keep my dad’s paperweight on my desk, and think of them daily.

She took her slice of life
then gave without measuring
or counting

Today his words surround me
with the quiet intensity of growing things,
roots planted a long time ago
lacing the distances of my heart.

No matter how far you've come, remember:
the starting line is always closer than you think.

consider a delicate porcelain bowl
how it crushes under a single blow-
in one moment whole years disappear