Do You Love This World?

Mary Oliver says: This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready

to break my heart as the sun rises,

as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingersand they open —

pools of lace,
 white and pink —

and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes 
into the curls,

craving the sweet sap

taking it away

to their dark, underground cities —

and all day

under the shifty wind,

as in a dance to the great wedding,the flowers bend their bright bodies,

and tip their fragrance to the air

and rise,

their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness

gladly and lightly,

and there it is again —

beauty the brave, the exemplary,blazing open.

Do you love this world?

Do you cherish your humble and silky life?

Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,

and softly,

and exclaiming of their dearness,

fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,

their eagerness
to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are

nothing,  forever?

======================

Once again, Mary Oliver invites us to love our lives with the passion inspired by the exemplary beauty of peonies, of roses, of  the while calla lillies that dance in profusion in my backyard this April morning. In this, she joins Rumi and all other wise ones; Rumi says:

One morning, I went to a place beyond dawn,

a source of sweetness that flows and never stops.

I have been shown a beauty which is beyond imagining!

Love it all, says Rumi, because ….everything is soul and flowering. Every thing is soul and flowering! When I remember this wisdom, my heart fills with joy that is independent of the changing events in my daily life.

On this day, I will love April and calla lilies, and  the opportunity to write, and to learn more music. I will treasure those who may ask for my help, and I will walk outdoors while the sun sets. I will remember Alice Walker’s character in The Color Purple who says the only thing that angers God is if we “pass the color purple in a field, and don’t notice.”

In another poem, Mary Oliver says:

.…I know how to walk through the fields all day, feeling blessed,

which is exactly what I have been doing.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die and too soon?

Tell me, what will you do with your one wild and precious life?

Ah, the great question. May we all answer it well today.

May you find comfort and moments of beauty in this precious day, dear visitor. As usual, I ask your help in contacting veterans anywhere who may need my counseling services, and I invite other therapists to provide sliding scale skilled help to those who have served us Iraq and Afghanistan.

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