Every summer I listen and look under the sun's brass and even into the moonlight, but I can't hear
anything, I can't see anything - not the pale roots digging down, nor the green stalks muscling up, nor the leaves deepening their damp pleats,
nor the tassels making, nor the shucks, nor the cobs. And still, every day,
the leafy fields grow taller and thicker - green gowns lofting up in the night, showered with silk.
And so, every summer, I fail as a witness, seeing nothing - I am deaf too to the tick of the leaves,
the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet - all of it happening beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.
And, therefore, let the immeasurable come. Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine. Let the wind turn in the trees, and the mystery hidden in the dirt
swing through the air. How could I look at anything in this world and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart? What should I fear?
One morning in the leafy green ocean the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body is sure to be there.
On a Perfect Day
by Jane Gentry
... I eat an artichoke in front of the Charles Street Laundromat and watch the clouds bloom into white flowers out of the building across the way. The bright air moves on my face like the touch of someone who loves me. Far overhead a dart-shaped plane softens through membranes of vacancy. A ship, riding the bright glissade of the Hudson , slips past the end of the street. Colette's vagabond says the sun belongs to the lizard that warms in its light. I own these moments when my skin like a drumhead stretches on the frame of my bones, then swells, a bellows filled with sacred breath seared by this flame, this happiness.
The Summer Day
By Mary Oliver
Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean-- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down, who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? 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?
This blog is an archive of poems, prayers and other items from my main blogFiat Lux. Please let me invite you to join us at Fiat Lux by clicking HERE or by clicking the lighthouse illustration below.