The Thief by Brooke Fraser

Your eyes are full,
full of the future of us
The air changes as you look across
at me in that wondering way

It is as if
I knew you before we spoke
Do our hearts know something we don't?
Conspiring, converging
without giving us any say

You sing me to sleep,
talk down my walls
Look through my windows as I wait
You could be the thief
I give the key to

You're ruining me
with secrets and gestures and looks
With sonnets and second-hand books
Playing the chords in me
nobody knew how to play

You sing me to sleep,
talk down my walls
Look through my windows as I wait
You could be the thief
I give the key to

It fits in your hand like the water in rain
It unlocks our two different selves
and shows we are the same
Rather than wait 'til I
put me out for the taking
You're breaking
You're breaking into my heart
and I'm letting you

Your eyes are full,
full of the future of us

Bird by Bird

"So I grew up around this man who sat at his desk in the study all day and wrote books and articles about the places and people he had seen and known. He read a lot of poetry. Sometimes he traveled. He could go anyplace he wanted with a sense of purpose. One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore. Another is that writing motivates you to look closely at life, at life as it lurches by and tramps around."

"Do it every day for a while" my father kept saying. "Do it as you would do scales on the piano. Do it by prearrangement with yourself. Do it as a debt of honor. And make a commitment to finishing things."

"I wrote a lot of other things, too. I took notes on the people around me, in my town, in my family, in my memory. I took notes on my own state of mind, my grandiosity, the low self-esteem. I wrote down the funny stuff I overheard. I learned to be like a ship's rat, veined ears trembling, and I learned to scribble it all down."

"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up."

"Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do--the actual act of writing--turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward."

Basic mysteries

"Nietzsche had argued that music is beyond rational understanding: it is too close to the basic mysteries and contradictions of existence; it touches and conveys realities for which words or logic are inadequate; it is, in Nietzsche's words, 'a realm of wisdom . . . from which logicians are excluded'; and it thus reminds us of the limitations of our power to understand the world."

Inspiration overdose

"But what am I to do? I must have some drug, and reading isn't a strong enough drug now." -C.S. Lewis

Feeling the itchings of an entry building up, but haven't the concentration to realize it entirely. but briefly--yesterday held much inspiration for me and I hope keep it fresh. the source: william zinsser, tom bird, the holy bible and a set of three scarlet moleskins, plus iridescent fuchsia nail color. if only one could freeze inspiration, store it away, and make use of it on reserve like that. because right now I'm nearly shaking on overdose.

I love books. literature has been hoarding my attention since I've been here in buffalo. there are books to read, books to sell, books to donate and certainly books to buy. one day I'll write one. that is a slow but sure work in progress. promise.

Letter to his sister

"I have been thinking lately that life in the will of God is better in each phase that we enter, so I can say honestly today, 'This is the best year of my life.' 

I am praying this for you both: that there will not be a sense of climax and then a fading such as I have observed in some young married people. But, rather, that the full experience of life, as it was meant to be lived from the beginning for adults, might be an increasing thing. God deliver us from lolling back and saying, 'I've had it.' We haven't had everything--only all we could take for the time being."

-Jim Elliot