…you can
drip with despair all afternoon and still,
on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched
by the passing foil of water, the thrush,
puffing out its spotted breast, will sing
of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.
Mary Oliver, The Poet with his face in his hands
I heard a bird congratulating itself
all day for being a jay.
Nobody cared. But it was glad
all over again, and said so, again
William Stafford, News Every Day
photo Magnus Manske
Day and night, gifts keep pelting down on us.
If we were aware of this, gratefulness would overwhelm us. But we go through life in a daze.
A power failure makes us aware of what a gift electricity is; a sprained ankle lets us appreciate walking as a gift, a sleepless night, sleep.
How much we are missing in life
by noticing gifts only when we are suddenly deprived of them.
David Steindal-Rast
photo: forS
Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before or after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
TS Eliot, Four Quartets
Life consists in penetrating the unknown
and fashioning our actions in accord
with the new knowledge thus acquired
Leo Tolstoy
Do you bow your head when you pray
or do you look up into that blue space?
Take your choice, prayers fly from all directions.
And don’t worry about what language you use,
God no doubt understands them all.
Even when the swans are flying north
and making such a ruckus of noise,
God is surely listening and understanding.
Rumi said, There is no proof of the soul.
But isn’t the return of spring
and how it springs up in our hearts a pretty good hint?
Yes, I know, God’s silence never breaks,
but is that really a problem?
There are thousands of voices, after all.
And furthermore, don’t you imagine (I just suggest it)
that the swans know about as much as we do
about the whole business?
So listen to them and watch them,
singing as they fly.
Take from it what you can.
Mary Oliver, Whistling Swans
