Woke with the birds and the rising sun this morning. Could not sleep. A sad day at work. And then I found this poem by Mary Oliver.
I will walk Hank and spend time with my friend Karla in Glover. We are visiting the Bread and Puppet Museum and Love’s Labour Lost Garden. Balm for my weary heart.
It Was Early
Mary Oliver
It was early, which has always been my hour to begin looking at the world
and of course, even in the darkness, to begin listening into it,
especially under the pines where the owl lives and sometimes calls out
as I walk by, as he did on this morning. So many gifts!
What do they mean? In the marshes where the pink light was just arriving
the mink with his bristle tail was stalking the soft-eared mice,
and in the pines the cones were heavy, each one ordained to open.
Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.
Little mink, let me watch you.
Little mice, run and run.
Dear pine cone, let me hold you as you open.
I wonder how you awoke this morning? Did you have doubts of your kind? Perhaps there are certain politicians whose rhetoric exasperates you, or the latest tally from terrorist bombing correlates with how many fewer times you will express today. Maybe you are thinking of the tender children who cannot run away from abusing adults, who could not run away from their circumstances either.
What if, as we think of how we are hunted and haunted each in our own way, we choose this today to be blessed. We watch the harm, we watch the fear, and we watch the chase, which is a dance, isn’t?
Then in response, we choose to bless the world and hold all lives, mean and small, knowing that the human heart may yet open. Maybe today.