ackerman

While most birds are busy singing a small operetta of who and what and where, hummingbirds are virtually mute. Such small voice don't carry far, so they don't bother much with song. But if they can't serenade a mate, or yell war cries at a rival, how can they perform the essential drama of their lives? They dance. Using body language, they spell out their intentions and moods, just as bees, fireflies or hula dancers do. That means elaborate aerial ballets in which males twirl, joust, sideswipe and somersault. Brazen and fierce, they will take on large adversaries — even cats, dogs or humans. (269)

Ackerman, Diane. "Mute Dancers: How to Watch a Hummingbird." On Writing: A Process Reader. Ed. Wendy Bishop. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2004. 268-270.

steiner

I have no intention of leaving. I walk around our apartment, continuing as a reporter, looking for evidence. Not evidence of alcohol — that would be easy. If I moved this chair I'd find seven or eight cat-batted bottle caps. There's probably a stray bottle or two under her drawing table. So what? I want evidence of something else, proof of why I stay. Her jacket's tossed on a chair and one of the cats is curled up on it. I lean in and smell the jacket, and the cat's warm fur. The phone number of our favorite pizza place is stuck on the refrigerator, along with the first card she gave me: a picture of a map. Written inside: Let's go everywhere. (258)

Steiner, Donna. "Sleeping with Alcohol." On Writing: A Process Reader. Ed. Wendy Bishop. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2004. 256-259.

moore

Don't all parents want the world for their children? Fellow parents, tell me, wouldn't we do anything for them? To give them big houses, we will cut ancient forests. TO give them perfect fruit, we will poison their food with pesticides. To give them the latest technologies, we will reduce entire valleys to toxic dumps. To give them the best education, we will invest in companies that profit from death. To keep them safe, we will deny them the right to privacy, to travel unimpeded, to peacefully assemble. And to give them peace, we will kill other peoples' children or send them to be killed, and amass enough weapons to kill the children again, kill them twenty times if necessary.

We would do anything for our children but the one big thing: Stop and ask ourselves, what are we doing and allowing to be done? (117)

Moore, Kathleen Dean. The Pine Island Paradox.

spanbauer

Then he'd say this:

"Smoke and wind and fire are all things you can feel but can't touch. Memories and dreams are like that too. They're what this world is made up of. There's really only a very short time that we get hair and teeth and put on red cloth and have bones and skin and look out our eyes. Not for long. Some folks longer than others. If you're lucky, you'll get t be the one who tells the story: how the eyes have seen, the hair has blown, the caress the skin has felt, how the bones have ached.

"What the human heart is like," he said.

"How the devil called and we did not answer.

"How we answered." (45)

Spanbauer, Tom. The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1991.

spanbauer

Wasn't til I lost them all, that I heard the story I hard forever needed to hear, and I found out things weren't the way I thought they were, which mean: what I was doing wasn't what I thought I was doing, and me, in the end, who I thought I was, wasn't at all who I was. (11)

Spanbauer, Tom. The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1991.