Any common desolation
can be enough to make you look up
at the yellowed leaves of the apple tree, the few
that survived the rains and frost, shot
with late afternoon sun. They glow a deep
orange-gold against a blue so sheer, a single bird
would rip it like silk. You may have to break
your heart, but it isn’t nothing
to know even one moment alive. The sound
of an oar in an oarlock or a ruminant
animal tearing grass. The smell of grated ginger.
The ruby neon of the liquor store sign.
Warm socks. You remember your mother,
her precision a ceremony, as she gathered
the white cotton, slipped it over your toes,
drew up the heel, turned the cuff. A breath
can uncoil as you walk across your own muddy yard,
the big dipper pouring night down over you, and everything
you dread, all you can’t bear, dissolves
and, like a needle slipped into your vein-
that sudden rush of the world.~Ellen Bass
how messy is this?
inquiry for today~ don’t give up on your loves….
The great lesson from the true mystics, from the Zen monks, and now also from the Humanistic and Transpersonal psychologists, that the sacred is in the ordinary . . . to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends, and family, in one’s back yard . . . To be looking elsewhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous.
~A. H. Maslow
