Notes:
- Photo: DK @ Daybreak. 5:15, 5:25 am, July 22, 2022. 73° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. A few more pictures from this morning here and here.
- Poem Source: liriostigre
Tag: Poem
Monday Morning Wake-Up Call
It’s impossible to be lonely
when you’re zesting an orange.
Scrape the soft rind once
and the whole room
fills with fruit.
Look around: you have
more than enough. Always have.
You just didn’t notice
until now.
— Amy Schmidt, Abundance (in memory of Mary Oliver) (Rattle.com, January 20, 2019)
Notes
- Photo: Eva Bronzini (via Pexels)
- Poem via Schonwieder
Monday Morning
The plan is obvious. Earth will become more and more beautiful until I can’t stand it. Then I will vanish.
— D. Nurkse, from his poem ‘A Clearing on Ruth Island’, published in Sangam House, March 2022
Notes:
- Photo: DK @ Cove Island Park @ Daybreak. 5:03 am. 59° F. May 30, 2022. See more photos from today’s glorious morning here.
- Poem Source: indeskidgepoetry
- And a final thought…the biggest thought fluttering around (more like cutting) — today being Memorial Day, a day we remember and honor those who sacrificed everything for our freedoms – – those Patriots who vanished before they were able to see another moment of our Earth’s beauty. I am grateful for them and honor them today. And perhaps there is a bigger, grander plan, for the wars, for the children slaughtered at elementary schools, for the incomprehensible racist killings at our neighborhood grocery stores – – because I can’t see any plan that includes killing fields in schools and grocery stores. Thomas Friedman: “But with every passing day, every mass shooting, every racist dog whistle, every defund-the-police initiative, every nation-sundering Supreme Court ruling, every speaker run off a campus, every bogus claim of election fraud, I wonder if he can bring us back together. I wonder if it’s too late. I fear that we’re going to break something very valuable very soon. And once we break it, it will be gone — and we may never be able to get it back…We are staring into that abyss right now.”
do not walk by without pausing to attend to this rather ridiculous performance
Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy
and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles
for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,
or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air
as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine
and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.
It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.
— Mary Oliver, “Invitation” in A Thousand Mornings (New York: Penguin Books, 2013).
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten of male goldfinch, Backyard, Cordova, TN, USA in October 2021 via unsplash
And then, there was Snow.
Come to my quietness I shall cover you with it,
like a white sheet that has blown all day in the sun,
like a mountain lake filled with spring,
it shall slip over you…
Notes:
- Photos: DK @ Daybreak. 6:30 to 6:50 am, Feb 13, 2022. Snow & Snowing. 29° F, feels like 22° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning here.
- Poem, Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels.