It is a chill, blustery, gray November day here in Davenport, Iowa. Upstairs the children are munching on their before breakfast sack, an Aldi knock-off of Kashi's Go Lean Crunch cereal (because I am that ridiculous) and creating with Legos. Thomas has constructed the archangel Michael and Death and brought down the dragon he shaped out of beeswax yesterday; a big fight out is imminent. Today I am deeply grateful for these little ones, my precious children, with their tiny jammies, their sticking up in the back hair, their silly jokes, their curiosity, and the beauty of their imagination. Today I am content, thankful for the first sip of the coffee my husband made just for me like he does every morning while I am huddled up asleep in our bed (because he is that kind), for the oversized, blue, fluffy robe enveloping my body- the robe that was my father's briefly and now is mine-, for the potato soup and loaf of molasses bread that we will offer thanks for this evening and then consume. Today I am thankful anew to be alive, to be exactly where I have been placed, to be given a new day, a new chance to love. May God help me. Peace and goodness to you all on this Wednesday.
In Blackwater Woods
Mary Oliver
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
3 comments:
Everything about this post is beautiful. The poetry of life...Mary Oliver's poem. Beautiful. Glad I took a second to sit and read this from my also rainy corner of Davenport. xoxo
Rainy? That's either snow or sleet out my window.
lots of love to you; God is with us; this poem reminded me a bit of this one by Jane Kenyon:
Let Evening Come
By Jane Kenyon
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
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