Charles Wright Quotes

"Sitting at Night on the Front Porch"

I’m here, on the dark porch, restyled in my mother’s chair.
10:45 and no moon.
Below the house, car lights
Swing down, on the canyon floor, to the sea.

In this they resemble us,
Dropping like match flames through the great void
Under our feet.
In this they resemble her, burning and disappearing.

Everyone’s gone
And I’m here, sizing the dark, saving my mother’s seat.

"Ars Poetica II"

I find, after all these years, I am a believer — I believe what the thunder and lightning have to say;
I believe that dreams are real,
and that death has two reprisals;
I believe that dead leaves and black water fill my heart.

I shall die like a cloud, beautiful, white, full of nothingness.

The night sky is an ideogram,
a code card punched with holes.
It thinks it’s the word of what’s-to-come.
It thinks this, but it’s only The Library of Last Resort,
The reflected light of The Great Misunderstanding.

God is the fire my feet are held to.

THINGS HAVE ENDS AND BEGINNINGS” Cloud mountains rise over mountain range. Silence and quietness, sky bright as water, sky bright as lake water. Grace is the instinct for knowing when to stop. And where.

All those nights looking up at the sky, wanting to be there, away from the grief of being here.

"Spider Crystal Ascension"

The spider, juiced crystal and Milky Way, drifts on his web through the night sky
And looks down, waiting for us to ascend …

At dawn he is still there, invisible, short of breath, mending his net.

All morning we look for the white face to rise from the lake like a tiny star.
And when it does, we lie back in our watery hair and rock.