We all lost Andrea Gibson on Monday

We lost Andrea Gibson on Monday.

I say we because, even if you’ve never read or heard an Andrea Gibson poem — especially if you’ve never read or heard an Andrea Gibson poem — you’ve lost too.

Andrea, who died of ovarian cancer, used that heartbreaking battle to rally hope in this wounded world. What a wonderful legacy. Death became an adventure in Andrea’s eloquent hands, and love an active verb.

I have read about a thousand tributes this week, and I have appreciated them all.

My favorite Andrea Gibson words, though, are Andrea Gibson’s.

Here, then, are 10 of my favorite Andrea Gibson quotes. These are not ranked, nor are they exclusive. I am treating myself to all the Andrea Gibson poems I can gather so my list of favorite Andrea Gibson quotes is long and growing.

I would love to hear yours. Here are some of mine:

1. “Tell me what the word home means to you
   and tell me in a way that I’ll know your mother’s name
   just by the way you describe your bedroom
   when you were eight.”

2. “When your heart is broken, you plant seeds in the cracks and pray for rain.”

3. “A doctor once told me I feel too much. I said, so does god. that’s why you can see the grand canyon from the moon.”

4. “I have never met a heavy heart that wasn’t a phone booth with a red cape inside.”

5. “I wish for a heart you can see straight through, for a voice that glows in the dark, and a few really good friends to say, “That’s the way to go.”

6. “Picasso said he’d paint with his own wet tongue
on the dusty floor of a jail cell if he had to.

We have to create.
It is the only thing louder than destruction.
It’s the only chance the bard are gonna break,
our hands full of color
reaching towards the sky,
a brush stroke in the dark.

It is not too late.
That starry night
is not yet dry.”

7. “Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive?”

8. “When the truth isn’t hopeful, the telling of it is.”

9. “I love. That could be the end of the sentence, but I love sentences. I love words huddled together like strangers trying to survive a frigid night.”

10. “In the end, I want my heart to be covered in stretch marks.”

I don’t really have any pictures to use with this post because I’ve never seen Andrea Gibson in person. But another great Gibson quote is “I know you think the world is too dark to dream in color, but I’ve seen flowers bloom at midnight.”

So, here are a few pictures of flowers I found blooming in the dawn during my morning walk yesterday.

Rest in peace and poetry, Andrea. You are a gift to the world.