Lessons in Gratitude Day 354

I am grateful tonight for poetry. Today I was cruising through Facebook as I often do–I am only on in the evenings so I have a lot of catching up to do from one night to the next–and a friend had posted a poem by Mary Oliver. As I read it, sighing a lot, I remembered how much I enjoy poetry and how very little time I’ve spent in my life actually reading it. I actually own a few volumes of poetry that are, unfortunately at the moment in one of the dozens of boxes in my storage unit. Thank goodness for the internet, however, which provides almost instantaneous access to all kinds of information, including poetry of all kinds.

I must confess to having been introduced to Mary Oliver only a few years ago, since I moved out here to California. I recognize that my education in the arts has been sadly lacking; it was not my academic discipline (not even close) so I was not exposed to poetry–either contemporary or classical–since my high school days. All of that is a bit odd as I used to write poetry. It wasn’t very good (it always rhymed, much to my dismay), until I realized I wasn’t actually writing poetry but song lyrics. Once I set my decent but unspectacular poems to music they became pretty good songs. Who knew?

So I thought it would be good to share a lovely Mary Oliver poem in honor of the one I’d read earlier this evening. I had in mind one I wanted to share, then ran across one that resonated so much with where I am in life at the moment, or at least what’s on my mind. It’s called, “The Journey,” and it describes a place where I am headed in my life, a journey that I am on. I find myself thinking about what I want to do with this next part of my life. I sense a restlessness in me, a pull toward something that I don’t quite recognize yet. I do know that as I contemplate my “what’s next” I find myself returning to the question posed at the end of Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day:”

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

What indeed is it that I plan to do? For now I will have to content myself with the question. Right now the press of priorities in my life are calling for more mundane but important actions like securing a reliable source of income (translation: a job); nevertheless the question tickles in the back of my mind and will remain there for quite some time until I finally bring it front and center.

And now a double treat: the nearly full moon rising over the trees in the back. I know I mentioned it in yesterday’s blog, but it is even more spectacular this evening–at nearly 9 p.m. out here in California and yet still light. And here comes the moon–99 percent illuminated according to the local meteorologist, it’ll be full tomorrow. I can hardly wait. And now, like clockwork, the robin adds her calls and the evening is complete. I am grateful. I am truly grateful.

Moonrise Over the Treetops

The Journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice–

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do–

determined to save

the only life you could save.

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