May 31, 2012

Dark morning, clouds thick and not much sun making it through them.  The air is so wet that even a small puddle made by the hose yesterday is still there this morning.  I was surprised, I thought it would have vanished by now.  A far off jet drags its own thunder behind it.  People are out walking, with and without dogs. Since there is no breeze, everything is still and getting hotter.  It's quiet, either the birds are sleeping in or they are gone out somewhere, too far for me to hear their notes. 

Honey glued the bird's water bowl again, and is filling it up, carefully placing the pumice rock in it so the little birds can drink and won't drown.  The surface has settled and is like a mirror of the leaves above it, there is no wind to ripple it.  There has been no rain for weeks now, though we get clouds, they carry the rain off to other places, leaving us to wonder just how far out of the drought we can remain if this goes on.  The water stays in the bowl so it must have worked, at least for the moment.

Someone hit our mailbox, pushing it over, now he's gone around with the truck to see if he can pull it upright again.  The letters slide too far back for the mail carrier, usually a lady, to reach.  There is always something, even something minor, that needs fixing, or adjusting, or painting, something always needs to be done.

Now the cicadas start their chorus, now the clouds part occasionally and let down the sun, now there is the invisible hand of the wind carressing the leaves.  An ordinary morning, every day something to learn . . .

Mindful

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

Mary Oliver

Can you learn something from looking out the window and reading the words other people use to tell their stories?  I don't know, but I keep looking out and seeing new things, hearing songs, the variety of light and the lack of it.  The poet's words can make me see the ordinary in not so ordinary ways.  Sometimes I wonder if there is ever any such thing as ordinary, or is everything, every moment unique and precious.  There are days nothing seems ordinary and days when everything is.  Some mornings all the words in the world seem distant and hard to fathom, and I take my meaning from just watching, and doing what is needed, and comfort in that routine.  Though I can't help wonder this morning, what prayers my thinning grass will make, and if those clouds, dark and not so distant now, will rain down more than a quick sprinkle, and keep us from sliding back into drought.