wORdS fOr a SpiNniNg pLaNet


sOmEtiMes it'S aLL yOu cAN do

tO kEep yOur eYes oPeN

aNd tHe rADio oN







"Now, Memphis ain't bad in the morning.

Good coffee, well, it's just hard to find.

But let me suggest that you never leave Memphis

with anything on your mind."

(Eric Taylor, "Memphis Midnight/Memphis Morning")


"Sally used to play with her hula hoops;

now she tells her problems to therapy groups,

oh yeah."

(John Prine, "The Sins of Memphisto")


"I remember feeling this way;

you can lose it without knowing.

You wake up and you don't notice

which way the wind is blowing."

(Tom Petty, "Don't Fade On Me")


"When you walk beside a river, following its course from mountain cradle to the sea, 

or dip your paddle in the water, keeping on the middle downward course, after a while 

you are carried out of yourself, becoming subject to all the moods of your mighty 

companion, becoming also aware of a power that is self-sufficient and independent of 

your friendship, beneficent to the land through which it flows . . ."

(Lady Clara C. Vyvyan, "Echoes and Silences")


"Tree trunks glide by as slowly I walk past,

and for a moment it seems they are dancing

beside me on the hillside."

(Ken Carey, "Flat Rock Journal")


"Wilderness is a resource that can shrink but not grow."

(Aldo Leopold, "A Sand County Almanac")


"We turn our faces away, willfully separating ourselves 

from the earth, never acknowledging that there may be 

no chance for healing, refusing to remember what we have done 

and what we have failed to do. Then, who can forgive us?"

(Kathleen Dean Moore, "Riverwalking")


"I love the wings

of butterflies."

(Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Butterflies")


"Diamonds, roses,

I need Moses

to cross this sea of loneliness,

part this red river of pain.

I don't necessarily buy

any key to the future or happiness, but I

need a little place in the sun sometimes

or I think I will die."

(Patty Griffin, "Moses")


"Some folks drive the bears out of the wilderness,

some to see a bear would pay a fee.

Me, I just bear up to my bewildered best,

and some folks even seen the bear in me."

(Steven Fromholz, "Bears")


"Nothing could be more salutary at this stage than a little healthy contempt for 

a plethora of material blessings. Perhaps such a shift of values can be achieved 

by reappraising things unnatural, tame, and confined in terms of things natural, 

wild, and free."

(Aldo Leopold, "A Sand County Almanac")


"Sentiment without action

is the ruin of the soul."

(Edward Abbey)


"Now the earth trembles under the peals of incessant distant thunder, 

the hurricane comes on roaring, and I am shocked again to life: 

I raise my head and rub open my eyes, pained with gleams and flashes 

of lightning; when . . . the dark cloud opens over my head, developing 

a vast river of the ethereal fire; I am instantly struck dumb, 

inactive and benumbed; at length the pulse of life begins to vibrate, 

the animal spirits begin to exert their powers, and I am by degrees revived."

(William Bartram, "Travels of William Bartram")


"They were horn shells, and when I saw them I had a nostalgic moment 

when I wished I might see what Audubon saw, a century and more ago. 

For such little horn shells were the food of the flamingo, once so 

numerous on this coast, and when I half closed my eyes I could almost 

imagine a flock of these magnificent flame birds feeding in that cove, 

filling it with their color. It was a mere yesterday in the life of the 

earth that they were there; in nature, time and space are relative matters, 

perhaps most truly perceived subjectively in occasional flashes of insight, 

sparked by such a magical hour and place."

(Rachel Carson, "The Edge of the Sea")


"It's been a million years

since I left the sea.

Oh, life above is so hard on me."

(Toni Price, "Swim Away")


"Sometimes it's like someone took a knife

baby, edgy and dull, cut a six-inch valley

through the middle of my soul."

(Bruce Springsteen, "I'm On Fire")


I just wanna live the life I please,

I don't want no enemies,

I don't want nothin' if I have to fake it.

Never take nothin' don't belong to me,

everything's paid for, nothing's free.

If I give my heart,

will you promise not to break it?"

(Lucinda Williams, "I Lost It")


"I ask you:

If the river is glass

and I put my fist through it

will you pull me up, muddied,

out of the undercurrent.

Will you know me when I stand

clean, before you;

having turned the fire-hose

toward my own face."

(Nina Solomon, "Fog and the Fire-Hose")


"I don't believe there is such a thing
 
as saying too much, no oh no.

There are those who like to look and

those who ain't afraid to touch."

(Patty Griffin, "Time Will Do the Talking")


"Sometimes the line I walk turns out to be straight.

Other days the line tends to deviate."

(Ani Difranco, "In or Out")


"One day in the Public Garden I see, on a small patch of grass under some trees,

a father and a two-year-old girl. The father is lying down; the little girl runs 

everywhere. What a joy to run! Suddenly she stops, looks intently at the ground, 

bends down, picks something up. A twig! A pebble! She stands up, runs again, 

sees a pigeon, chases it, suddenly stops and looks up into the sunlit trees, 

seeing what? Perhaps a squirrel, perhaps a bird, perhaps just the shape and 

colors of the leaves in the sun. Then she bends down, finds something else, 

picks it up, examines it. A leaf! Another miracle."

(John Holt, "How Children Learn")


"Put it on your nose

and you're Pinocchio,

or put it on your mouth

and breath in,

you're a bird."

(Origami instructions for "Pinocchio Nose or Bird Beak" figure)


"I stood once in midstream, balanced on a rock. 

A scarlet leaf fluttered, spiraled down. 

I watched it, became a wind-blown leaf, swayed, 

fell into the water with a giant human splash, 

then soddenly crawled out, laughing uproariously."

(Audrey Sutherland, from "Rivers Running Free")


"This inadvertent behavior

increases the chances

of the ant-on-the-grass

being eaten by late

and early grazers."

(Barbara Moon, biologist & accidental poet)


"When I went to high school I got the history of

the people who owned the wealth of the country,

but none of the history of the people who created it

. . . and that was deliberate, wasn't it?"

(Utah Phillips)


"A lot of the educational system is designed for that, if you think about it,

it's designed for obedience and passivity. From childhood, a lot of it is 

designed to prevent people from being independent and creative. If you're 

independent-minded in school, you're probably going to get into trouble

very early on. That's not the trait that's being preferred or cultivated."

(Noam Chomsky, "Common Courage")


"I think I'm dumb,

Or maybe just happy."

(Nirvana, "Dumb")


"You have to stay alert or you will find yourself

sucked away by a work ethic as strong as a vacuum."

(Kathleen Dean Moore, "Riverwalking")


"So in America when the sun goes down 

and I sit on the old broken-down river pier 

watching the long, long skies over New Jersey 

and sense all that raw land that rolls in one 

unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, 

and all that road going, all the people 

dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa 

I know by now the children must be crying 

in the land where they let the children cry, 

and tonight the stars'll be out, 

and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear?"

(Jack Kerouac, "On the Road")


"Who remembers Kerouac;

what was that all about?

Right on, Jack.

So long, Jack.

Who remembers anything,

and who cares anyhow?

But here's to those still on the road

and those on the road back."

(Walter Hyatt, "Babes in the Woods")


"Please, can I kiss your kneecaps?"

(dada, "S.F. Bar '63")


"It's certainly true, and I think we all know it, that a certain 

amount of self-deception is helpful for getting around in the world, 

but that doesn't mean it's healthy. Maybe it's better to face reality. 

I think it probably is. If you face reality, you're going to find a lot 

to be depressed about. But the question is whether it's better to be 

honestly depressed or falsely euphoric.

. . . if people were to ask me for advice, I'd say be honestly 

depressed. Face reality and try to deal with it. And come to terms 

with it, and recognize that there are things that are not the way 

you want them, rather than pretending that they're not there. I think 

you're probably better off that way."

(Noam Chomsky, from a 1989 interview)


"Only the half-mad are wholly alive."

(Edward Abbey)


"Don't stand in my way.

I'm gonna climb up and see if this table top spins,

gonna haul out my old red accordion,

cause you can't play a polka on ten violins.

Who cares if I don't know how?"

(Patty Larkin, "Red Accordion")


"Well, there's more than one way home,

ain't no right way, ain't no wrong.

And whatever road you might be on,

you find your own way.

'Cause there's more than one way home."

(Keb Mo, "More Than One Way Home")


"In any case, why should we wish to leave this lake? Why 

should we not float on forever in a world that is so calm 

and beautiful?

Something has touched me here and now like music on muted 

strings. I have come home; back to that long lost home which, 

without plan or conscious purpose, I have always been seeking."

(Lady Clara C. Vyvyan, on her Alaskan wilderness travels, 1926)


"Meet us in the air

over the water,

sing the swallows.

Meet me, meet me,

the redbird sings,

here here here here."

(Wendell Berry, "The Law That Marries All Things")


"Going eighty on the highway,

we're all rushing somewhere.

But the way I feel tonight,

it's like I'm already there."

(Lucy Kaplansky, "Ten Mile Night")







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