Annie Dillard on Touch and Heaven

From Feast Days (III)

I love with my hand, not my heart.
When I draw your face
my fingers trace your lips.
Crossing a page, my hand keeps
contours; I know that art
is edges.
I touch when I type.
With every finger's tip
I travel the weave of the given.
Hand me a pencil,
cut off my head,
and I will draw you heaven.

Annie Dillard on Freedom of Hearts

From Feast Days (II)

I remember reading
in my room, just reading,
and shutting the book,
and looking up,
and missing you, missing you,
and reading the paper again.
There's no freedom in it
or in fear:
my heart's not mine.

Annie Dillard on the Universal and the Particular

From Feast Days (III)

...the reason
for some silly-looking fishes,
for the bizarre mating
of certain adult insects,
or the sprouting, say,
in a snow tire
of a Rocky Mountain grass,
is that the universal
loves the particular,
that freedom loves to live
and live fleshed full,
intricate,
and in detail.

God empties himself
into the earth like a cloud.
God takes the substance, countours
of a man, and keeps them,
dying, rising, walking,
and still walking
wherever there is motion.