Diane Ackerman
Diane Ackerman
Diane Ackermanis an American poet, essayist, and naturalist known for her wide-ranging curiosity and poetic explorations of the natural world...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth7 October 1948
CountryUnited States of America
attention
We are defined by how we place our attention.
senses understand
There is no way in which to understand the world without first detecting it through the radar-net of our senses.
law cities people
People search for love as if it were a city lost beneath the desert dunes, where pleasure is the law, the streets are lined with brocade cushions, and the sun never sets.
alone belongs body bond brains feels fusion internal matter neither self whose
Brain scans show synchrony between the brains of mother and child; but what they can't show is the internal bond that belongs to neither alone, a fusion in which the self feels so permeable it doesn't matter whose body is whose.
blowing fringe hail hurricane starts town
When a hurricane thrashes the mid-Atlantic, my hilly town often reaps the fringe of the storm. The rain starts blowing sideways, and sometimes we see hail the size of purie marbles.
cells choices define few further future gizmos haunt impulses knowing traces ultimately
I like knowing that the further back one traces any lineage, the narrower the path grows, to the haunt of just a few shaggy ancestors, with luck on their side, little gizmos in their cells and a future storied with impulses and choices that will ultimately define them.
divide evolved exist provide relation scouts volumes
When all is said and done, we exist only in relation to the world, and our senses evolved as scouts who bridge that divide and provide volumes of information, warnings and rewards.
areas drop facing seek shelter wild
Like many animals, wild ponies can sense a drop in barometric pressure. When a storm threatens, they know to seek shelter in hilly areas and huddle together with their rumps facing the oncoming wind.
generally peace regard
The garden is a living, pulsing, singing, scratching, warring, erotic, and generally rowdy thing. I may find peace in its midst, but I regard it as a whole with many parts, a plural organism.
embrace legs pushing six time
We embrace two-legged beings, and can warm to four-legged beings, too, but for most people, six legs is pushing it. Most don't need multi-eyed, antennaed face time.
inspirational life motivational
I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.
compassion hatred soul
I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace.
life beautiful country
It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.
details fans interest
I am a great fan of the universe, which I take literally: as one. All of it interests me, and it interests me in detail.