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Quote by Richard Blanco

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How to Love a Country

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Richard Blanco
Richard Blanco

Richard Blanco is a renowned American poet born on February 15, 1968, in Puerto Rico. His poetry blends personal experience, cultural identity, and public issues, enjoying great popularity among readers. more

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“Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. Now, how can I help him? What should I tell him? Well, I refrained from telling him anything but instead confronted him with the question, “What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?” “Oh,” he said, “for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!” Whereupon I replied, “You see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering — to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.” He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”

DeathSufferingMeaning
Book:Man's Search for Meaning
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“Write one more stanza—now. Set the page ablaze with the anger in the hollow ache of our bones— anger for the new hate, same as the old kind of hate for the wrong skin color, for the accent in a voice, for the love of those we’re not supposed to love. Anger for the voice of politics armed with lies, fear that holds democracy at gunpoint.”

LoveWritingPoetryPoemHatredAngerLgbtqShootingsPulse Nightclub
Book:How to Love a Country
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“How I still want to sing despite all the truth of our wars and our gunshots ringing louder than our school bells, our politicians smiling lies at the mic, the deadlock of our divided voices shouting over each other instead of singing together. How I want to sing again-- beautiful or not, just to be harmony--from sea to shining sea--with the only country I know enough to know how to sing for.”

PoetryPoemSingingHarmonyUnityPatriotismAmerica The Beautiful
Book:How to Love a Country
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“Timelessly, that flame flickered. Unquenchable upon its undying wick. Fluctuating, pulsating, Dimming to near darkness at moments only to spark the clearer. Endlessly, that fire wickered. Ubiquitous in its guiding light. Permeating, coalescing, All-encompassing of the smallest point and grandest of spheres. Boundlessly, that blaze bickered. Ultimate in its infinite valour. Contesting, challenging, And settling with the edge of infinity, that ultimate bound severe.”

PoemSupernaturalSymbolism
Book:The Sapphire Shore
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“Let no man in the world have The gift from god or nature To see the little girl living In emotional poverty Living in fear and insecurity Living in a sixty-two-year-old woman I have come to see and know I love you with all my heart All that I have seen All that I knew All that I have given All that I love about you Is given from my soul To furnish your soul When the choices come No material gifts No emotional gifts Will match the immortal love I have in me That Only lives to love you” Santiago”

LovePoem
Author:Kenan Hudaverdi
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