Читать книгу Hunger - Elise Blackwell - Страница 5

We were aware that the visible earth is made of ashes, and that ashes signify something. Through the obscure depths of history we could make out the phantoms of great ships laden with riches and intellect; we could not count them. But the disasters that had sent them down were, after all, none of our affair.

Elam, Nineveh, Babylon were but beautiful vague names, and the total ruin of those worlds had as little significance for us as their very existence. But France, England, Russia . . . these too would be beautiful names. . . . And we see now that the abyss of history is deep enough to hold us all.

— Paul Valéry

You may have noticed the bush that it pushes to air, Comical-delicate, sometimes with second-rate flowers Awkward and milky and beautiful only to hunger.

— Richard Wilbur, from “Potato”