The Sun
Yesterday it rained, slow and steady, with a chill in the air. It was the kind of day that beckons one to stay indoors, curled up with a book, or knitting. It was my day off and I didn't do much of anything. Today the sun rises, and it's back to work. But first a moment of prayer, and a poem.
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone -
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
of every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance -
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love -
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed-
or have you too turned from this world -
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
- Mary Oliver, "New and Selected Poems" Volume One, Beacon Press, Boston, 1992
So, off I go, to prepare for a long day of work. A day in which I pray I will not go crazy for power and things but reside in gratitude for the gift of life in all the ways that creations manifests our creators love.
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone -
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
of every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance -
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love -
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed-
or have you too turned from this world -
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
- Mary Oliver, "New and Selected Poems" Volume One, Beacon Press, Boston, 1992
So, off I go, to prepare for a long day of work. A day in which I pray I will not go crazy for power and things but reside in gratitude for the gift of life in all the ways that creations manifests our creators love.
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