Singing Of Brightness And Beauty

I love to read great books, don’t you?  

I started reading when I was four years old, and I have been captivated ever since.  I especially love fiction, with Russian, British and Southern Gothic literature being among my favorites.  

Rob loves poetry, especially William Blake, Wallace Stevens, Seamus Heaney and John Updike.  And we are both head over heels in love with the American poet Billy Collins.  (In fact, he is speaking at a writer’s seminar at a local university next month, and we are trying our best to figure out a way to go.)

So inspiration from books has been always present.  Here’s a quote from one of my favorite books, Cancer Ward, by one of my favorite authors, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.  

“Her smile was kind, not so much her smile as the lips themselves. They were vital separate lips, which seemed about to flutter from her face like a lark into the sky. They were made, as all lips are, for kissing, yet they had other more important work to do: to sing of brightness and beauty.” 

When I read that years ago in my bed late at night, I had to get up and write it down so I would not forget how important this work of singing really is.  

I think it might be possible to bring brightness and beauty to the world with a song, and if it is possible, I want to do it.

Advertisement