Jeannine Atkins

One can slide between poor and rich, the difference as slight as between paper and parchment, one voice and a choir, arms hanging by sides and a hug.

Stars crown the world, she said, but the lights in your eyes, those are stars, too. They make up your crown, he said.

No one wants to stumble into gates on moonless nights to trip in holes dug by dogs, but Maria finds more beauty than danger in night.

There's more in the earth than anyone knows. We'll find wonders.

As Maria Mitchell pointed out in 1875, 'Science needs women'.

Names and knowledge change, the way the turningworld brings color or deep shadows, without a soundeven as soft as the twist of a key in a lock.

Love's language is imprecise,fits more like mittens than gloves.