Homage to Kish: Their Story, In Words and Pictures
I love going through poetry I've read before and finding new meanings/insights as they relate to my current ship. With Kish, my initial inspiration was a book on the Medieval principles of Courtly Love. The idealism and longing of those poems and stories was a great reminder of the universality of Kish's romance. I started delving into other volumes of poetry and famous quotations on my bookshelf, finding that I would visualize a specific moment/image from Kish's story for a line or stanza that particularly resonated with me. I decided to compile these together in a sort of literary collage (okay, okay - a glorified picspam). The endeavor was well underway when news broke that their story would be ending, which obviously added a sense of urgency to my work. As a result, I've chosen to cover only the period up to their love scene on New Year's Eve. (I do have some selections set aside for moments in 2010, but felt that NYE was a natural endpoint. I may post entries for January through April at a later date.)
The selections are laid out in chronological order, but the perspective throughout the collection is very fluid. Some pieces are chosen because they mirror Oliver's thoughts or words in a specific instance, others because of how well they capture Kyle's perspective. Some depict how both boys were feeling in the moment, while in several places the selection is more a commentary on the situation rather than a first person "account". While I attempt to include literature from a variety of languages, I must admit that I only speak English and a bit of Spanish. Therefore, I am at the mercy of translators for a number of the pieces. Translation is an art, rather than an exact science; I imagine it is especially treacherous in the world of poetry, where words are so carefully selected by the author, not only for their meaning but for the way they sound next to each other. Rhyme and rhythm - key components of poetry - can be quite literally “lost in translation”. In several instances, I found more than one translation of the same text; in each case, I opted to use the one that I felt best complemented the story (recognizing that it may or may not be the most linguistically or academically "correct" version).
Disclaimer: All images and literary works featured here belong to their respective owners; I just smushed them together. I apologize in advance for the (sometimes drastic) fluctuations in image quality.
And now, here is my celebration of Kyle and Oliver's love story, via bits of poetry and prose…
Recorders ages hence,
Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior, I will tell you what to say of me,
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
The friend the lover's portrait, of whom his friend his lover was fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him, and freely pour'd it forth,
Who often walk'd lonesome walks thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,
Who pensive away from one he lov'd often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he lov'd might secretly be indifferent to him,
Whose happiest days were far away through fields, in woods, on hills,
he and another wandering hand in hand, they twain apart from other men,
Who oft as he saunter'd the streets curv'd with his arm the shoulder of his friend, while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.
~Walt Whitman
Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.
* * * * *
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother:
They parted-ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining-
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between;-
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from "Christabel"
Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All I recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
~Walt Whitman, “To a Stranger”
You've so distracted me,
your absence fans my love.
Don't ask how.
Then you come near.
"Do not..." I say, and
"Do not...," you answer.
Don't ask why
this delights me.
~Rumi
When the sweet breeze turns bitter
and the leaf falls down from the branch
and the birds change their language,
I, here, sigh, and sing
of Love, who holds me bound and captured,
Love, whom I never have had in my power.
I am weary, for I have won nothing from love
but toil and torture,
for nothing is so hard to get
as the thing I desire;
and nothing fills me with such longing
as the thing I cannot have...
~Cercamon
The day he left, he said I knew the reason.
Look at the trees. Love only lasts a season.
For years since then, I've stared at them and seen
Only their blackened branches beneath the green.
~J.D. McClatchy, from "Lingering Doubts"
Did you never know, long ago, how much you loved me -
That your love would never lessen and never go?
You were young then, proud and fresh-hearted,
You were too young to know.
Fate is a wind, and red leaves fly before it
Far apart, far away in the gusty time of year -
Seldom we meet now, but when I hear you speaking,
I know your secret, my dear, my dear.
~Sara Teasdale
We must never be afraid to go too far, for truth lies beyond.
~Marcel Proust
Let it be alleys. Let it be a hall
Whose janitor javelins epithet and thought
To cheapen hyacinth darkness that we sought
And played we found, rot, make the petals fall.
Let it be stairways, and a splintery box
Where you have thrown me, scraped me with your kiss,
Have honed me, have released me after this
Cavern kindness, smiled away our shocks.
That is the birthright of our lovely love
In swaddling clothes, not like that Other one.
Not lit by any fondling star above.
Not found by any wise men, either. Run.
People are coming. They must not catch us here.
Definitionless in this strict atmosphere.
~Gwendolyn Brooks, “A Lovely Love”
Truth calls to us, drawn by the innocent laughter of a child, or the kiss of a loved one; but we close the doors of affection in her face and deal with her as with an enemy.
~Kahlil Gibran, from The Voice of the Master
…I want to know
the truth about the love we two
once had; so tell me, please,
why you've given it to someone else.
For your song doesn't sound the way it did,
and I never held myself back from you,
nor did you once demand such love from me
but that I wasn't instantly at your command.
~Isabella Cairel, from a Tenzon between Isabella and Elias Cairel
There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.
~Milan Kundera, from The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
~W.H. Auden
Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.
~Paul Tournier
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
~William Shakespeare, from The Tempest
How come I mortgaged my being
till I don't belong to myself?
How come I sold my blood?
And who now owns
my indecisions, my hands,
my private pain, my pride?
~Pablo Neruda, from "Lost Letters" (translated by Alastair Reid)
Resolve to be thyself: and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery.
~Matthew Arnold, from “Self-Dependence”
At best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another, generosity and love. But it is also, all too often, where we learn nasty things like hate, rage and shame.
~Barbara Ehrenreich
Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.
~Albert Schweitzer
You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
~Buddha
Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.
~William Butler Yeats, “A Drinking Song”
To be in love
Is to touch things with a lighter hand.
In yourself you stretch, you are well.
You look at things
Through his eyes.
A Cardinal is red.
A sky is blue.
Suddenly you know he knows too.
He is not there but
You know you are tasting together
The winter, or light spring weather.
His hand to take your hand is overmuch.
Too much to bear.
You cannot look in his eyes
Because your pulse must not say
What must not be said.
~Gwendolyn Brooks, from "To Be In Love"
it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;
if this should be, i say if this should be-
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.
~e.e. cummings
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.
~William Shakespeare, from Measure for Measure
I would that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more.
Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? What the core
O’ the wound, since wound must be?
I would I could adopt your will,
See with your eyes, and set my heart
Beating by yours, and drink my fill
At your soul’s springs, - your part my part
In life, for good and ill.
~Robert Browning, from “Two in the Campagna”
Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, Away!
Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle mood:
Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay
Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, from "Stanzas (April, 1814)"
When he
Shuts a door-
Is not there-
Your arms are water.
And you are free
With a ghastly freedom.
You are the beautiful half
Of a golden hurt.
You remember and covet his mouth,
To touch, to whisper on.
Oh when to declare
Is certain Death!
Oh when to apprize
Is to mesmerize,
To see fall down, the Column of Gold,
Into the commonest ash.
~Gwendolyn Brooks, from "To Be In Love"
Heart, we will forget him!
You and I, tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done, pray tell me
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you're lagging.
I may remember him!
~Emily Dickinson
I am larger, better than I thought,
I did not know I held so much goodness.
All seems beautiful to me,
I can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me I would do the same to you,
I will recruit for myself and you as I go,
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.
~Walt Whitman, from "Song of the Open Road"
The way of love is not
a subtle argument.
The door there
is devastation.
Birds make great sky-circles
of their freedom.
How do they learn that?
They fall, and falling,
they're given wings.
~Rumi
To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.
~Lao Tzu
So much so did their hearts open up to each other that only in one another did they see the promise of true freedom revealed.
~Gottfried von Strassburg, from Tristan and Isolt (translated by Jessie Weston, adapted by Robert Yagley)
…it was then that in all your magnificence
you were not ashamed to know me. Your breath moved tenderly
over my face. And, spread across solemn distances,
your smile entered my heart.
~Rainer Maria Rilke, from “The Vast Night” (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before.
My heart has left its dwelling place
And can return no more.
~John Clare, from "First Love"
Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace
To look through and behind this mask of me,
(Against which years have beat thus blanchingly
With their rains), and behold my soul’s true face,
The dim and weary witness of life’s race!-
Because thou hast the faith and love to see,
Through that same soul’s distracting lethargy,
The patient angel waiting for a place
In the new heavens!-because nor sin nor woe,
Nor God’s infliction, nor death’s neighborhood,
Nor all which others viewing, turn to go, . .
Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed, . .
Nothing repels thee, . . Dearest, teach me so
To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good.
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet XXXIX (Sonnets from the Portuguese)
The clear bead at the center changes everything.
There are no edges to my love now.
You've heard it said there's a window
that opens from one mind to another,
but if there's no wall, there's no need
for fitting the window, or the latch.
~Rumi
Ah! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears,
And hopes, and joys, and panting miseries, --
To-night, if I may guess, thy beauty wears
A smile of such delight,
As brilliant and as bright,
As when with ravished, aching, vassal eyes,
Lost in soft amaze,
I gaze, I gaze!
~John Keats, from "Ode to Fanny"
O Love, O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul thro'
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from “Fatima”
And in Life's noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.
You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within;
And to the leading Love-throb in the Heart
Thro' all my Being, thro' my pulse's beat;
You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,
Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve
On rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.
And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,
How oft! I bless the Lot that made me love you.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Love"
When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me by the hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, I am silent, I require nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity beyond the grave,
But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.
~Walt Whitman, from “Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances”
If ‘twere a shame to love, here ‘twere no shame,
Affection here takes Reverence’s name.
~John Donne, from Elegy IX “The Autumnal”
It is enough for me by day
To walk the same bright earth with him;
Enough that over us by night
The same great roof of stars is dim.
I do not hope to bind the wind
Or set a fetter on the sea -
It is enough to feel his love
Blow by like music over me.
~Sara Teasdale, "Enough"
From their eyelids as they glanced dripped love.
~Hesiod, from Theogony
My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep;
the more I give to thee the more I have, for both are infinite.
~William Shakespeare, from Romeo and Juliet
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh .... And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new
~e.e. cummings
I've come within range of hate.
Terrifying, its tremors,
its dizzing obsessions.
Hate's like a swordfish
invisible in the water,
knifing suddenly into sight
with blood on its blade-
clear water misleads you.
-Pablo Neruda, from "Autumn Testament" (translated by Alastair Reid)
O you whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you;
As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me.
~Walt Whitman
But we, while we are intent upon one object,
already feel the pull of another. Conflict
is second nature to us. Aren't lovers
always arriving at each other's boundaries?-
although they promised vastness, hunting, home.
~Rainer Maria Rilke, from the Fourth Duino Elegy (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
As I by yours, you've passed a hell of time;
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
O! that our night of woe might have remembered
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tendered
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!
~William Shakespeare, from Sonnet CXX
We shall be one, and one another’s All.
~John Donne, from “Lover’s Infiniteness”
Now a soft kiss-Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss…
~John Keats, from “Endymion”
Isn’t the secret intent
of this taciturn earth, when it forces lovers together,
that inside their boundless emotion all things may shudder with joy?
~Rainer Maria Rilke, from the Ninth Duino Elegy (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
There is some kiss we want
with our whole lives, the touch
of spirit on the body. Seawater
begs the pearl to break its shell.
And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling!
At night, I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its
face against mine.
Breathe into me. Close
the language-door and open the love-window.
The moon won't use the door,
only the window.
~Rumi
As Adam early in the morning,
Walking forth from the bower refresh'd with sleep,
Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach,
Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,
Be not afraid of my body.
~Walt Whitman
Time
is divided
into two rivers:
one
flows backward, devouring
life already lived;
the other
moves forward with you
exposing
your life.
For a single second
they may be joined.
Now.
This is that moment,
the drop of an instant
that washes away the past.
It is the present.
It is in your hands.
Racing, slipping,
tumbling like a waterfall.
But it is yours.
Help it grow
with love…
~Pablo Neruda, from "Ode to the Past" (translated by Margaret Sayers Peden)
…And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast-and that night I was happy.
~Walt Whitman, from "When I Heard at the Close of the Day"
Many thanks to KISH KAPS and jyl22075 for the screen captures and video clips used to put this together, and also to my friend Afrodite, who was kind enough to help with some of the image editing.
My eternal gratitude to K, for her invaluable input and support (and for her constant willingness to listen to me rant about the hurtful mistake ABC is making).
This project is dedicated to Brett Claywell and Scott Evans, whose commitment to these characters and class in the face of adversity have been admirable. The spirit of trust and teamwork evident in their acting partnership has been inspirational, and the passion, tenderness, and authenticity they brought to the story of Kyle and Oliver touched me deeply. I wish them every happiness imaginable, and feel confident that both talented men will find much success in the future. I know I’ll be watching whatever they choose to do next. After tomorrow, we may no longer have Kish scenes to look forward to from these wonderful actors, but I will forever cherish the work that they did. As Sara Teasdale wrote:
Into my heart's treasury
I slipped a coin
That time cannot take
Nor a thief purloin,-
Oh better than the minting
Of a gold-crowned king
Is the safe-kept memory
Of a lovely thing.
The selections are laid out in chronological order, but the perspective throughout the collection is very fluid. Some pieces are chosen because they mirror Oliver's thoughts or words in a specific instance, others because of how well they capture Kyle's perspective. Some depict how both boys were feeling in the moment, while in several places the selection is more a commentary on the situation rather than a first person "account". While I attempt to include literature from a variety of languages, I must admit that I only speak English and a bit of Spanish. Therefore, I am at the mercy of translators for a number of the pieces. Translation is an art, rather than an exact science; I imagine it is especially treacherous in the world of poetry, where words are so carefully selected by the author, not only for their meaning but for the way they sound next to each other. Rhyme and rhythm - key components of poetry - can be quite literally “lost in translation”. In several instances, I found more than one translation of the same text; in each case, I opted to use the one that I felt best complemented the story (recognizing that it may or may not be the most linguistically or academically "correct" version).
Disclaimer: All images and literary works featured here belong to their respective owners; I just smushed them together. I apologize in advance for the (sometimes drastic) fluctuations in image quality.
And now, here is my celebration of Kyle and Oliver's love story, via bits of poetry and prose…
Recorders ages hence,
Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior, I will tell you what to say of me,
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
The friend the lover's portrait, of whom his friend his lover was fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him, and freely pour'd it forth,
Who often walk'd lonesome walks thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,
Who pensive away from one he lov'd often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he lov'd might secretly be indifferent to him,
Whose happiest days were far away through fields, in woods, on hills,
he and another wandering hand in hand, they twain apart from other men,
Who oft as he saunter'd the streets curv'd with his arm the shoulder of his friend, while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.
~Walt Whitman
Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.
* * * * *
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother:
They parted-ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining-
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between;-
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from "Christabel"
Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All I recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
~Walt Whitman, “To a Stranger”
You've so distracted me,
your absence fans my love.
Don't ask how.
Then you come near.
"Do not..." I say, and
"Do not...," you answer.
Don't ask why
this delights me.
~Rumi
When the sweet breeze turns bitter
and the leaf falls down from the branch
and the birds change their language,
I, here, sigh, and sing
of Love, who holds me bound and captured,
Love, whom I never have had in my power.
I am weary, for I have won nothing from love
but toil and torture,
for nothing is so hard to get
as the thing I desire;
and nothing fills me with such longing
as the thing I cannot have...
~Cercamon
The day he left, he said I knew the reason.
Look at the trees. Love only lasts a season.
For years since then, I've stared at them and seen
Only their blackened branches beneath the green.
~J.D. McClatchy, from "Lingering Doubts"
Did you never know, long ago, how much you loved me -
That your love would never lessen and never go?
You were young then, proud and fresh-hearted,
You were too young to know.
Fate is a wind, and red leaves fly before it
Far apart, far away in the gusty time of year -
Seldom we meet now, but when I hear you speaking,
I know your secret, my dear, my dear.
~Sara Teasdale
We must never be afraid to go too far, for truth lies beyond.
~Marcel Proust
Let it be alleys. Let it be a hall
Whose janitor javelins epithet and thought
To cheapen hyacinth darkness that we sought
And played we found, rot, make the petals fall.
Let it be stairways, and a splintery box
Where you have thrown me, scraped me with your kiss,
Have honed me, have released me after this
Cavern kindness, smiled away our shocks.
That is the birthright of our lovely love
In swaddling clothes, not like that Other one.
Not lit by any fondling star above.
Not found by any wise men, either. Run.
People are coming. They must not catch us here.
Definitionless in this strict atmosphere.
~Gwendolyn Brooks, “A Lovely Love”
Truth calls to us, drawn by the innocent laughter of a child, or the kiss of a loved one; but we close the doors of affection in her face and deal with her as with an enemy.
~Kahlil Gibran, from The Voice of the Master
…I want to know
the truth about the love we two
once had; so tell me, please,
why you've given it to someone else.
For your song doesn't sound the way it did,
and I never held myself back from you,
nor did you once demand such love from me
but that I wasn't instantly at your command.
~Isabella Cairel, from a Tenzon between Isabella and Elias Cairel
There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels for someone, for someone, pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.
~Milan Kundera, from The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.
~W.H. Auden
Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.
~Paul Tournier
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
~William Shakespeare, from The Tempest
How come I mortgaged my being
till I don't belong to myself?
How come I sold my blood?
And who now owns
my indecisions, my hands,
my private pain, my pride?
~Pablo Neruda, from "Lost Letters" (translated by Alastair Reid)
Resolve to be thyself: and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery.
~Matthew Arnold, from “Self-Dependence”
At best the family teaches the finest things human beings can learn from one another, generosity and love. But it is also, all too often, where we learn nasty things like hate, rage and shame.
~Barbara Ehrenreich
Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.
~Albert Schweitzer
You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
~Buddha
Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.
~William Butler Yeats, “A Drinking Song”
To be in love
Is to touch things with a lighter hand.
In yourself you stretch, you are well.
You look at things
Through his eyes.
A Cardinal is red.
A sky is blue.
Suddenly you know he knows too.
He is not there but
You know you are tasting together
The winter, or light spring weather.
His hand to take your hand is overmuch.
Too much to bear.
You cannot look in his eyes
Because your pulse must not say
What must not be said.
~Gwendolyn Brooks, from "To Be In Love"
it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;
if this should be, i say if this should be-
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.
~e.e. cummings
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.
~William Shakespeare, from Measure for Measure
I would that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more.
Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? What the core
O’ the wound, since wound must be?
I would I could adopt your will,
See with your eyes, and set my heart
Beating by yours, and drink my fill
At your soul’s springs, - your part my part
In life, for good and ill.
~Robert Browning, from “Two in the Campagna”
Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, Away!
Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle mood:
Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay
Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, from "Stanzas (April, 1814)"
When he
Shuts a door-
Is not there-
Your arms are water.
And you are free
With a ghastly freedom.
You are the beautiful half
Of a golden hurt.
You remember and covet his mouth,
To touch, to whisper on.
Oh when to declare
Is certain Death!
Oh when to apprize
Is to mesmerize,
To see fall down, the Column of Gold,
Into the commonest ash.
~Gwendolyn Brooks, from "To Be In Love"
Heart, we will forget him!
You and I, tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done, pray tell me
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you're lagging.
I may remember him!
~Emily Dickinson
I am larger, better than I thought,
I did not know I held so much goodness.
All seems beautiful to me,
I can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me I would do the same to you,
I will recruit for myself and you as I go,
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.
~Walt Whitman, from "Song of the Open Road"
The way of love is not
a subtle argument.
The door there
is devastation.
Birds make great sky-circles
of their freedom.
How do they learn that?
They fall, and falling,
they're given wings.
~Rumi
To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage.
~Lao Tzu
So much so did their hearts open up to each other that only in one another did they see the promise of true freedom revealed.
~Gottfried von Strassburg, from Tristan and Isolt (translated by Jessie Weston, adapted by Robert Yagley)
…it was then that in all your magnificence
you were not ashamed to know me. Your breath moved tenderly
over my face. And, spread across solemn distances,
your smile entered my heart.
~Rainer Maria Rilke, from “The Vast Night” (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before.
My heart has left its dwelling place
And can return no more.
~John Clare, from "First Love"
Because thou hast the power and own’st the grace
To look through and behind this mask of me,
(Against which years have beat thus blanchingly
With their rains), and behold my soul’s true face,
The dim and weary witness of life’s race!-
Because thou hast the faith and love to see,
Through that same soul’s distracting lethargy,
The patient angel waiting for a place
In the new heavens!-because nor sin nor woe,
Nor God’s infliction, nor death’s neighborhood,
Nor all which others viewing, turn to go, . .
Nor all which makes me tired of all, self-viewed, . .
Nothing repels thee, . . Dearest, teach me so
To pour out gratitude, as thou dost, good.
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet XXXIX (Sonnets from the Portuguese)
The clear bead at the center changes everything.
There are no edges to my love now.
You've heard it said there's a window
that opens from one mind to another,
but if there's no wall, there's no need
for fitting the window, or the latch.
~Rumi
Ah! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears,
And hopes, and joys, and panting miseries, --
To-night, if I may guess, thy beauty wears
A smile of such delight,
As brilliant and as bright,
As when with ravished, aching, vassal eyes,
Lost in soft amaze,
I gaze, I gaze!
~John Keats, from "Ode to Fanny"
O Love, O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul thro'
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from “Fatima”
And in Life's noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.
You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within;
And to the leading Love-throb in the Heart
Thro' all my Being, thro' my pulse's beat;
You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,
Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve
On rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.
And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,
How oft! I bless the Lot that made me love you.
~Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Love"
When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me by the hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, I am silent, I require nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity beyond the grave,
But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.
~Walt Whitman, from “Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances”
If ‘twere a shame to love, here ‘twere no shame,
Affection here takes Reverence’s name.
~John Donne, from Elegy IX “The Autumnal”
It is enough for me by day
To walk the same bright earth with him;
Enough that over us by night
The same great roof of stars is dim.
I do not hope to bind the wind
Or set a fetter on the sea -
It is enough to feel his love
Blow by like music over me.
~Sara Teasdale, "Enough"
From their eyelids as they glanced dripped love.
~Hesiod, from Theogony
My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep;
the more I give to thee the more I have, for both are infinite.
~William Shakespeare, from Romeo and Juliet
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh .... And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new
~e.e. cummings
I've come within range of hate.
Terrifying, its tremors,
its dizzing obsessions.
Hate's like a swordfish
invisible in the water,
knifing suddenly into sight
with blood on its blade-
clear water misleads you.
-Pablo Neruda, from "Autumn Testament" (translated by Alastair Reid)
O you whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you;
As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me.
~Walt Whitman
But we, while we are intent upon one object,
already feel the pull of another. Conflict
is second nature to us. Aren't lovers
always arriving at each other's boundaries?-
although they promised vastness, hunting, home.
~Rainer Maria Rilke, from the Fourth Duino Elegy (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
As I by yours, you've passed a hell of time;
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
O! that our night of woe might have remembered
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tendered
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!
~William Shakespeare, from Sonnet CXX
We shall be one, and one another’s All.
~John Donne, from “Lover’s Infiniteness”
Now a soft kiss-Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss…
~John Keats, from “Endymion”
Isn’t the secret intent
of this taciturn earth, when it forces lovers together,
that inside their boundless emotion all things may shudder with joy?
~Rainer Maria Rilke, from the Ninth Duino Elegy (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
There is some kiss we want
with our whole lives, the touch
of spirit on the body. Seawater
begs the pearl to break its shell.
And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling!
At night, I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its
face against mine.
Breathe into me. Close
the language-door and open the love-window.
The moon won't use the door,
only the window.
~Rumi
As Adam early in the morning,
Walking forth from the bower refresh'd with sleep,
Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach,
Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,
Be not afraid of my body.
~Walt Whitman
Time
is divided
into two rivers:
one
flows backward, devouring
life already lived;
the other
moves forward with you
exposing
your life.
For a single second
they may be joined.
Now.
This is that moment,
the drop of an instant
that washes away the past.
It is the present.
It is in your hands.
Racing, slipping,
tumbling like a waterfall.
But it is yours.
Help it grow
with love…
~Pablo Neruda, from "Ode to the Past" (translated by Margaret Sayers Peden)
…And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast-and that night I was happy.
~Walt Whitman, from "When I Heard at the Close of the Day"
Many thanks to KISH KAPS and jyl22075 for the screen captures and video clips used to put this together, and also to my friend Afrodite, who was kind enough to help with some of the image editing.
My eternal gratitude to K, for her invaluable input and support (and for her constant willingness to listen to me rant about the hurtful mistake ABC is making).
This project is dedicated to Brett Claywell and Scott Evans, whose commitment to these characters and class in the face of adversity have been admirable. The spirit of trust and teamwork evident in their acting partnership has been inspirational, and the passion, tenderness, and authenticity they brought to the story of Kyle and Oliver touched me deeply. I wish them every happiness imaginable, and feel confident that both talented men will find much success in the future. I know I’ll be watching whatever they choose to do next. After tomorrow, we may no longer have Kish scenes to look forward to from these wonderful actors, but I will forever cherish the work that they did. As Sara Teasdale wrote:
Into my heart's treasury
I slipped a coin
That time cannot take
Nor a thief purloin,-
Oh better than the minting
Of a gold-crowned king
Is the safe-kept memory
Of a lovely thing.