Quote of the Week - Rukeyser

We tell beginnings: for the flesh and the answer,
or the look, the lake in the eye that knows,
for the despair that flows down in widest rivers,
cloud of home; and also the green tree of grace,
all in the leaf, in the love that gives us ourselves.

The word of nourishment passes through the women,
soldiers and orchards rooted in constellations,
white towers, eyes of children:
saying in time of war What shall we feed?
I cannot say the end.

Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings.
Not all things are blest, but the
seeds of all things are blest.
The blessing is in the seed.

This moment, this seed, this wave of the sea, this look, this instant of love.
Years over wars and an imagining of peace. Or the expiation journey
toward peace which is many wishes flaming together,
fierce pure life, the many-living home.
Love that gives us ourselves, in the world known to all
new techniques for the healing of the wound,
and the unknown world. One life, or the faring stars.

- Muriel Rukeyser, "Elegy in Joy"

I found a quote from this poem; then I found the poem.  I could not resist using the entire thing (although several website list this portion as an excerpt, so perhaps there is more).

As an Aries, I love beginnings!  Love starting things, love the spark of new, the matchstick strike of idea, the kindling new personalities rubbing up against each other.  Only failure and tennis have taught me the incredibly counter-intuitive world of follow through.

It's true as your 3rd grade science project - not all seeds make it.  But many of the ones that do, become trees.

(Hope you're been reading the fantastic guest bloggers so far in Women's History Month!  Angelique Palmer, Ruthanna Barnett, and Caroline Rothstein!)