never less than one, or more

   

this cloud is learning, Jean Marc Caimi

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The body
is a single creature, whole,
its life is one, never less than one, or more,
so is its world, and so 
are two bodies in their love for one another. 
In ignorance of this
we talk ourselves to death.


—Wendell Berry
Sabbaths, XIV

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A man and a woman sit near each other, and they do not long at this moment to be older, or younger, nor born in any other nation, or time, or place.

They are content to be where they are, talking or not talking. Their breaths together feed someone whom we do not know.

The man sees the way his fingers move; he sees her hands close around a book she hands to him.

They obey a third body they have in common.
They have made a promise to love that body.

Age may come, parting may come, death will come.

A man and woman sit near each other; as they breathe they feed someone we do not know, someone we know of, whom we have never seen.


—Robert Bly

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Every breath taken in
by the man who loves,
and the woman who loves,
goes to fill the water tank
where the spirit horses drink.


—Robert Bly

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