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Quotes from Emplumada — Lorna Dee Cervantes

born 1954 United States

← All quotes by Lorna Dee Cervantes

14 quotes

Our dreams wafted over the sullen skyline
like crazy meteors of flying embers:
a glow in the heart all night.

Emplumada (1981)

There's sky and death
shimmering the waves.

Emplumada (1981)

They spotlight those who walk
like a dream, with no one
waiting in the shadows
to palm them back to living.

Emplumada (1981)

And finally, it is me
only guessing at what secrets
or hatreds they share.

Emplumada (1981)

And late that night I tasted
the last of the sweet fruit, sucked the rich pit
and thought nothing of death.

Emplumada (1981)

She would not be
silent and still.
She would live,
arrogantly,
having wrestled
her death
and won.

Emplumada (1981)

I ran
flushed and shadowed by no one
alone I settled stiff in mouth
with the words women gave me.

Emplumada (1981)

My palm cupped her mouth
As I kissed her, the flesh
Of my hand between us.

Emplumada (1981)

We knew, love, and that was all
we were ever offered.

Emplumada (1981)

I have learned the serenity
of a mockingbird, the justice
of a crow, blue jay's strength;
I've dipped their feathers in blood
to seal the pact—my path.

Emplumada (1981)

I am driven from this world, alive.
I come to this world, in dreams.

Emplumada (1981)

I come from a long line of eloquent illiterates
whose history reveals what words don't say.
Our anger is our way of speaking,
the gesture is an utterance more pure than word.

Emplumada (1981)

Two hummingbirds, hovering, stuck to each other,
arcing their bodies in grim determination
to find what is good, what is
given them to find. These are warriors
distancing themselves from history.
They find peace
in the way they contain the wind
and are gone.

Emplumada (1981)

In the years that separate,
in the tongues that divide
and conquer, in the love
that was a language
in itself, you never spoke,
never regret. Even
that last morning
I saw you with blood
in your eyes, blood
on your mouth, the blood
pushing out of you
in purple blossoms.

Emplumada (1981)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Lorna Dee Cervantes (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.