Nine of the best book quotes from The Weather of the Heart
01
“The winter is cold, is cold.
All’s spent in keeping warm.
Has joy been frozen, too?
I blow upon my hands
Stiff from the biting wind.
My heart beats slow, beats slow.
What has become of joy?
Poetry and prayer are synonymous in my life, and because both are a gift, which I accept with joy and sometimes pain, I seldom know whether I have served the gift well or ill. But perhaps that doesn’t really matter; the important thing is to be willing - to want to serve the gift whenever it comes, either as verse or prayer...
“Pain is a partner I did not request;
This is a dance I did not ask to join;
whirled in a waltz when I would stop and rest,
Jolted and jerked, I ache in bone and loin.
Pain strives to hold me close in his embrace;
If I resist and try to pull away
His grasp grows tighter; closer comes his face;
hotter his breath. If he is here to stay
Then must I learn to dance this painful dance,
Move to its rhythm, keep my lagging feet
In time with his. Thus have I a chance
To work with pain, and so may pain defeat.
Pain is my partner. If I dance with pain
Then may this wedlock be not loss but gain.”