excerpted from: Eulogy for James Gandolfini, David Chase

"I went to meet you on the banks of the Hudson River, and you told me, you said, 'You know what I want to be? I want to be a man. That's all. I want to be a man.' Now, this is so odd, because you are such a man. You're a man in many ways many males, including myself, wish they could be a man.

"The paradox about you as a man is that I always felt personally, that with you, I was seeing a young boy. A boy about Michael's age right now. 'Cause you were very boyish. And about the age when humankind, and life on the planet are really opening up and putting on a show, really revealing themselves in all their beautiful and horrible glory. And I saw you as a boy — as a sad boy, amazed and confused and loving and amazed by all that. And that was all in your eyes. And that was why, I think, you were a great actor: because of that boy who was inside. He was a child reacting. Of course you were intelligent, but it was a child reacting, and your reactions were often childish. And by that, I mean they were pre-school, they were pre-manners, they were pre-intellect. They were just simple emotions, straight and pure. And I think your talent is that you can take in the immensity of humankind and the universe, and shine it out to the rest of us like a huge bright light. And I believe that only a pure soul, like a child, can do that really well. And that was you."

 ~  "James Gandolfini eulogized by 'Sopranos' creator David Chase and friends and family"

excerpts from Great House, Nicole Krauss

Our kiss was anticlimactic. It wasn't that the kiss was bad, but it was just a note of punctuation in our long conversation, a parenthetical remark made in order to assure each other of a deeply felt agreement, a mutual offer of companionship, which is so much more rare than sexual passion or even love.

...

There is a fallacy that the powerful emotion of youth mellows with time. Not true. One learns to control and suppress it. But it doesn't lessen. It simply hides and concentrates itself in more discreet places. When one accidentally stumbles into one of these abysses, the pain is spectacular. I find these little abysses everywhere now. 

...

Do children die? you asked. I felt a pain open in my chest. Sometimes, I said. Perhaps I should have chosen other words. Never, or simply, No. But I didn't lie to you. At least you can say that of me. Then, turning your little face to me, without flinching, you asked, Will I die? And as you said the words horror filled me as it had never before, tears burned my eyes, and instead of saying what I should have said, Not for a long, long time, or Not you my child, you alone will live forever, I said, simply, Yes. And because, not matter how you suffered, deep inside you were still an animal like any other who wants to live, feel the sun, and be free, you said, But I don't want to die. The terrible injustice of it filled you. And you looked at me as if I were responsible. 

 ~ Great House, Nicole Krauss

From: A General Theory of Love, Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon

"Science is an inherent contradiction — systematic wonder — applied to the natural world. In its mundane form, the methodical instinct prevails and the result, an orderly procession of papers, advances the perimeter of knowledge, step by laborious step. Great scientific minds partake of that daily discipline and can also suspend it, yielding to the sheer love of allowing the mental engine to spin free. And then Einstein imagines himself riding a light beam, Kekule formulates the structure of benzene in a dream, and Fleming’s eye travels past the annoying mold on his glassware to the clear ring surrounding it — a lucid halo in a dish otherwise opaque with bacteria — and penicillin is born. Who knows how many scientific revolutions have been missed because their potential inaugurators disregarded the whimsical, the incidental, the inconvenient inside the laboratory?"

 -- From: A General Theory of Love, Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon
Systematic Wonder: A Definition of Science That Accounts for Whimsy

We call it a ribcage—
from all the words we own,
we choose to describe our casings
as prisons and trammels
for a wild thing to be put behind bars
with no grace of enclosure,
no sense of stature.
Language is a thing of the mind,
and in the stumbling of its choices,

it makes clear who is afraid
of the hunger of the heart.

Claire Salcedo

From Root Shock, Mary Fullilove

Because we dance in a ballroom, have a parade in a street, make love in a bedroom, and prepare a feast in a kitchen, each of these places becomes imbued with sounds, smells, noises, and feelings of those moments and how we lived them. When we enter an old classroom, the smell of chalk on the boards can bring back a swarm of memories of classmates and lessons, boredom and dreams. Walking toward a favorite bar awakens expectations of friends and drinks, good times, good food. The breeze on a certain hillside reminds us of a class trip, while the sun in the garden brings thoughts of Dad. Try to find the shortcut you used to take to your best friend's house and it is your feet that will carry you there. The cues from place dive under conscious thought and awaken our sinews and bones, where days of our lives have been recorded.

...

Root shock is the traumatic stress reaction to the destruction of all or part of one's emotional ecosystem. It has important parallels to the physiological shock experienced by a person who, as a result of injury, suddenly loses massive amounts of fluids. Such a blow threatens the whole body's ability to function. The nervous system attempts to compensate for the imbalance by cutting off circulation to the arms and legs. Suddenly the hands and feet will seem cold and damp, the face pale, and the brow sweaty. This is an emergency state that can preserve the brain, the heart, and the other essential organs for only a brief period of time. If the fluids are not restored, the person will die. Shock is the fight for survival after a life-threatening blow to the body's internal balance.

Just as the body has a system to maintain its internal balance, so, too, the individual has a way to maintain the external balance between himself and the world. This way of moving in the environment maximizes the odds that he will survive predators, find food, maintain shelter from the harsh elements, and live in harmony with family and neighbors. This method for navigating the external environment is selected because, based on individual and collective trial-and-error experiences with the mazelike possibilities offered by the surrounding world, it seems to offer the greatest chances for survival. Using this analogy to mazes we can call the chosen pattern of movement "a way to run the maze of life," or, more simply, a "mazeway."

When the mazeway, the external system of protection, is damaged, the person will go into root shock. Just as a burn victim requires immediate replacement of fluids, so, too, the victim of root shock requires the support and direction of emergency workers who can erect shelter, provide food, and ensure safety until the victim has stabilized and can begin to take over these functions again.

Imagine the victim of an earthquake, a hurricane, a flood, or a terrorist attack. He suffers from root shock as he looks at the twisted remains of the known universe, searching for the road to the supermarket, which used to be there, but is now a pile of rubble. Imagining such a person-and knowing that these tragedies can happen to any of us-we open our hearts and wallets to the Red Cross and other relief organizations that show up immediately to be the temporary mazeway, the transfusion of an environment to those who are naked to the elements.

The experience of root shock-like the aftermath of a severe burn-does not end with emergency treatment, but will stay with the individual for a lifetime. In fact, the injury from root shock may be even more enduring than a burn, as it can affect generations and generations of people. Noah's ark-and his effort to rebuild the world after the flood-is the true story of a lost world. We keep telling that story because we keep living it, not simply when the floods come, but after they have receded and we try to rebuild.

Andrea Gibson, Photograph

I wish I was a photograph
tucked into the corners of your wallet
I wish I was a photograph
you carried like a future in your back pocket
I wish I was that face you show to strangers
when they ask you where you come from
I wish I was that someone that you come from
every time you get there
and when you get there
I wish I was that someone who got phone calls
and postcards saying
wish you were here
I wish you were here
autumn is the hardest season
the leaves are all falling
and they're falling like they're falling in love with the ground
and the trees are naked and lonely
I keep trying to tell them
new leaves will come around in the spring
but you can't tell trees those things
they're like me they just stand there
and don't listen
I wish you were here
I've been missing you like crazy
I've been hazy eyed
staring at the bottom of my glass again
thinking of that time when it was so full
it was like we were tapping the moon for moonshine
or sticking straws into the center of the sun
and sipping like Icarus would forever kiss
the bullets from our guns
I never meant to fire you know
I know you never meant to fire lover
I know we never meant to hurt each other
now the sky clicks from black to blue
and dusk looks like a bruise
I've been wrapping one night stands
around my body like wedding bands
but none of them fit in the morning
they just slip off my fingers and slip out the door
and all that lingers is the scent of you
I once swore if I threw that scent into a wishing well
all the wishes in the world would come true
do you remember
do you remember the night I told you
I've never seen anything more perfect than
than snow falling in the glow of a street light
electricity bowing to nature
mind bowing to heartbeat
this is gonna hurt bowing to I love you
I still love you like moons love the planets they circle around
like children love recess bells
I still hear the sound of you
and think of playgrounds
where outcasts who stutter
beneath braces and bruises and acne
are finally learning that their rich handsome bullies
are never gonna grow up to be happy
I think of happy when I think of you
so wherever you are I hope you're happy
I really do
I hope the stars are kissing your cheeks tonight
I hope you finally found a way to quit smoking
I hope your lungs are open and breathing you life
I hope there's a kite in your hand
that's flying all the way up to orion
and you still got a thousand yards of string to let out
I hope you're smiling
like god is pulling at the corners of your mouth
cause I might be naked and lonely
shaking branches for bones
but I'm still time zones away
from who I was the day before we met
you were the first mile
where my heart broke a sweat
and I wish you were here
I wish you'd never left
but mostly I wish you well
I wish you my very very best

  ~  "Photograph" by Andrea Gibson, From: Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns

Adrienne Rich, This Evening Let's

This Evening Let's

not talk

about my country     How
I'm from an optimistic culture

that speaks louder than my passport
Don't double-agent-contra my

invincible innocence     I've
got my own

suspicions     Let's
order retsina

cracked olives and bread
I've got questions of my own but

let's give a little
let's let a little be

If friendship is not a tragedy 
if it's a mercy

we can be merciful
if it's just escape

we're neither of us running
why otherwise be here

Too many reasons not
to waste a rainy evening

in a backroom of bouzouki
and kitchen Greek

I've got questions of my own but
let's let it be a little

There's a beat in my head
song of my country

called Happiness, U.S.A.
Drowns out bouzouki

drowns out world and fusion
with its Get—get—get

into your happiness before 
happiness pulls away

hangs a left along the piney shore 
weaves a hand at you—"one I adore"—

Don't be proud, run hard for that 
enchantment boat

tear up the shore if you must but 
get into your happiness because

before 
and otherwise 
it's going to pull away 

So tell me later
what I know already

and what I don't get
yet     save for another day

Tell me this time
what you are going through

travelling the Metropolitan
Express

break out of that style
give me your smile
awhile

 ~ Adrienne Rich, This Evening Let's (2001)