The Ordering of Love Quotes

“How long your closet held a whiff of you,
Long after hangers hung austere and bare.
I would walk in and suddenly the true
Sharp sweet sweat scent controlled the air
And life was in that small still living breath.
Where are you? since so much of you is here,
Your unique odour quite ignoring death.
My hands reach out to touch, to hold what's dear
And vital in my longing empty arms.
But other clothes fill up the space, your space,
And scent on scent send out strange false alarms.
Not of your odour there is not a trace.
But something unexpected still breaks through
The goneness to the presentness of you.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L'Engle

“We cannot always cry at the right time
and who is to say which time is right?”
― Madeleine L'Engle, The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L'Engle

“To grow up
is to find
the small part you are playing
in the extraordinary drama
written by
somebody else.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L'Engle

“Neither sadist nor masochist, I still
Must turn to violence: break, be broken.
False image of myself I beg you: kill.
Help me destroy the one of you I’ve spoken
Within my wilful heart. It is no more you
Than I am all that I would wish to be.
I cannot really love you till I hew
All these projections of an unreal me,
An imaged you, to shards. Then death
Will have a chance to free me for creation.
God! All this dying has me out of breath.
How do I understand reincarnation?
But if I burst all bonds of self-protection
Then may I find us both in resurrection.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L'Engle

“The reaper lacks the eyes to hold him back;”
― Madeleine L'Engle, The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L'Engle

“Oh, girl, not woman, more than child, Which of us two is the more wild? So”
― Madeleine L'Engle, The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L'Engle

“Expand my love, Lord, so I can help to bear the pain, help your love move my love into the tired prostitute with false eyelashes and bunioned feet, the corrupt policeman with his hand open for graft, the addict, the derelict, the woman in the mink coat and discontented mouth, the high school girl with heavy books and frightened eyes. Help me through these scandalous particulars to understand your love. Help me to pray.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L'Engle