"An honorable human relationship--that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love"--is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.

It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.

It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.

It is important to do this because we can count on so few to go that hard way with us."

--Adrienne Rich

"Laughing At the Word Two"

Only

That Illuminated

One

Who keeps

Seducing the formless into form

Had the charm to win my

Heart.

Only a Perfect One

Who is always

Laughing at the word

Two

Can make you know

Of

Love.

I am a writer.
And my faith in the world of art is intense.
But not irrational, nor naïve.
Because art takes us – and makes us take-
A journey beyond price
Beyond costs
Into bearing witness to the world as it is, and as it should be.
Art invites us to know beauty, and to solicit it, summon it,
from even the most tragic of circumstances.
Art reminds us that We Belong Here.
And if we serve -- We Last.
My faith in art rivals my admiration for any other discourse.
Its conversation with the public, and among its various genres
Is critical to understanding
what it means to care deeply
And to be human completely
 I believe.

-Toni Morrison
Vanderbilt University Senior Day Chancellor’s Medal Address
May 9, 2013

"And if we serve-- we last. And if we serve-- we last. And if we serve--- somehow, we last."

All I got from her is that hope must be an intoxicating and resilient condition of the soul. Imbued, rendered tenderly, yet fiercely determined.