Steven Rowley said this quote

“ What do you think of when you think of mourning?' Jenny asks.The question snaps me back to attention. I answer without really thinking. I guess 'Funeral Blues' by W.H. Auden. I think it was Auden. I suppose that's not very original.''I don't know it.''It's a poem.''I gathered.''I'm just clarifying. It's not a blues album.'Jenny ignores my swipe at her intelligence.'Does your response need to be original? Isn't that what poetry is for, for the poet to express something so personal that it ultimately is universal?'I shrug. Who is Jenny, even new Jenny, to say what poetry is for? Who am I for that matter?'Why do you thin of that poem in particular?'Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, / Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, / Silence the pianos and with muffled drum / Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.' I learned the poem in college and it stuck. ”

Famous Quotes of Steven Rowley

Famous quotes of Steven Rowley from the classy quote

See all

Cal opens a drawer, pulls out a sketch pad and charcoal and sets them down on a drafting table.'Let's draw.'I smile the way I did as a child when receiving a fresh box of 64 Crayola crayons, unabashedly showing all my teeth. I remember how much I used to love to draw, and I wonder why I don't do it anymore. I write, I guess. I draw with words, but when I see Cal's pad and charcoal, I'm overwhelmed with the feeling that it's not the same. I use my words, my artist's charcoal to describe what I'm thinking. He draws with an imperfect fluidity, pausing only occasionally to shade the drawing with his thumb or brush the paper with the back of his hands. He listens and nods and doesn't interrupt. And when I'm done speaking he looks at the drawing, and his eyes get really big. Slowly, he turns his pad around for me to see. My heart stops and then starts. 'Yes,' I say. It's perfect. Alive with added detail and beautiful Inuit soulfulness I couldn't have even imagined sitting outside in my car. My fear is gone. There's a tingling in my skin, like I can feel the thousand needle pricks to come. I am alive.

~ Steven Rowley

We bring champagne to Franklin and Jeffrey, and I offer a final toast, 'Wishing you all good things in your life together.' Short, simple, to the point. I look at Meredith, relaxed in her ivory gown, my sister is all grown up. I'm grateful we did our growing up together.

~ Steven Rowley

Jenny and I once talked about how we manage to live despite the knowledge that we are all going to die. What's the point of it all? Why bother getting up in the morning when faced with such futility? Or is it the promise of death that inspires life? That we must grab what we can while there's still time? Is it the not knowing if today is the day that keeps us going? But what if this is the day? What if the hour is here? How do you stand? How do you breathe? How do you go on?

~ Steven Rowley

The sun rises with a surprising intensity, a sign that June Gloom has cleared the runway and July is on approach. We are both tired, and it would've been to return to our bed after our morning walk, read from a book maybe, drift lazily in and out of sleep. But the sun beckons with a blazingly confrontational message: There is darkness, but there is also light. To stay in bed would be to embrace the darkness, the seizures, the octopus. To go outside is to embrace the light.

~ Steven Rowley