Sad . . .

Sadness is a wall between two gardens.
                                           -- Kahlil Gibran

Burning

Lord of the Starfields, Ancient of Days
Universe Maker, here's a Song in Your Praise
Voice of the Nova, Smile of the Dew
All of our yearning only comes home to You!
Oh Love that fires the sun, keep me burning
                                                                              - Bruce Cockburn

Life's Reasons

The cloak of the past is cut from patches of feeling, and sewn with rebus threads. Most of the time, the best we can do is wrap it around ourselves for comfort or drag it behind us as we struggle to go on. But everything has its cause and its meaning. Every life, every love, every action and feeling and thought has its reason and significance: its beginning, and the part it plays in the end. Sometimes, we do see. Sometimes, we see the past so clearly, and read the legend of its parts with such acuity, that every stitch of time reveals its purpose, and a kind of message is enfolded in it. Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow. And in the tiny, precious wisdom that they give to us, even those dread and hated enemies, suffering and failure, have their reason and their right to be. Shantaram, p. 871

The Kiss

It was a long kiss. We lived out a life together in that kiss: we lived and loved and grew old together, and we died. Then our lips parted, and that life we might’ve had retreated, shrinking to a spark of light we would always recognize in one another’s eyes. Shantaram, p. 639

Loved and Lost . . .

At first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. What we should fear and dread, of course, is that we won’t stop loving them, even after they’re gone. . . . Sometimes, my friend, the love that I have, and can’t give to you, crushes the breath from my chest. Sometimes, even now, my heart is drowning in a sorrow that has no stars without you, and no laughter, and no sleep. Shantaram, p. 629