“I find now, swallowing one teaspoon
of pain, that it drops downward
to the past where it mixes
with last year’s cupful
and downward into a decade’s quart
and downward into a lifetime’s ocean.
I alternate treading water
and deadman’s float.”

— Anne Sexton

Source: The Complete Poems

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I find now, swallowing one teaspoon of pain, that it drops downward to the past where it mixes with last year’s cupful …" by Anne Sexton?

Anne Sexton 120

poet from the United States 1928–1974

Related quotes

“The birds depart, the flowers wither, the branches are dislodged and drift downward; no trace is left of the floating island but a stone submerged by the water; — such is our personality.”

Cyril Connolly book The Unquiet Grave

Part I: Ecce Gubernator (p. 20)
The Unquiet Grave (1944)
Context: A stone lies in a river; a piece of wood is jammed against it; dead leaves, drifting logs, and branches caked with mud collect; weeds settle there, and soon birds have made a nest and are feeding their young among the blossoming water plants. Then the river rises and the earth is washed away. The birds depart, the flowers wither, the branches are dislodged and drift downward; no trace is left of the floating island but a stone submerged by the water; — such is our personality.

“I feel people will tend toward universal love and mutual aid like fire tending upward and water downwards — it will be unpreventable in the world.”

Mozi (-470–-391 BC) Chinese political philosopher and religious reformer of the Warring States period

Book 4; Universal Love III
Mozi
Context: Now, as to universal love and mutual aid, they are beneficial and easy beyond a doubt. It seems to me that the only trouble is that there is no superior who encourages it. If there is a superior who encourages it, promoting it with rewards and commendations, threatening its reverse with punishments, I feel people will tend toward universal love and mutual aid like fire tending upward and water downwards — it will be unpreventable in the world.

“QUEEN: But Hymen's torch, held downward, shall drop out,
And for it, the mad Furies swing their brands
About the bride-chamber.”

Thomas Dekker The Noble Spanish Soldier

The Noble Spanish Soldier (1622)

“The "Strange Loop" phenomenon occurs whenever, by moving upwards (or downwards) through levels of some hierarchial system, we unexpectedly find ourselves right back where we started.”

Douglas Hofstadter book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

"Introduction: A Musico-Logical Offering"
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979)

“Of the bodies in the cosmos, some imitate mind and move in orbits; some imitate soul and move in a straight line, fire and air upward, earth and water downward.”

Sallustius Roman philosopher and writer

VII. On the Nature of the World and its Eternity.
On the Gods and the Cosmos

“Who climbs the mountain does not always climb.
The winding road slants downward many a time;
Yet each descent is higher than the last.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

Climbing
Poetry quotes, New Thought Pastels (1913)

“I'd like for them to say he took a few cups of love, he took one tablespoon of patience, teaspoon of generosity, one pint of kindness. He took one quart of laughter, one pinch of concern, and then, he mix willlingness with happiness, he added lots of faith, and he stired it up well, then he spreads it over his span of a lifetime, and he served it to each and every deserving person he met.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

Response to George Plimpton, question at the end of an interview: "What would you like people to think about you when you've gone?" - Interview (video) http://youtube.com/watch?v=ebu0OBa1pus