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Everything Keeps Happening

I don’t want to miss all of life’s intricacies.

I want everything.  The pain, the sorrow, the happiness, the joy.  I accept it all.

But I’m continually having to slow myself down.  To notice.  Pay attention.  See.  Hear.  Hold.  Touch.

Especially now.  Always now.

Mary Oliver says it superbly in “Both Worlds.”  It’s my gift—or should I say hers?—for you on this wonderful day.

Forever busy, it seems,
with words,
finally
I put the pen down

and crumple
most of the sheets
and leave one or two,
sometimes a few,

for the next morning.
Day after day—
year after year—
it has gone on this way,

I rise from the chair,
I put on my jacket
and leave the house
for that other world—

the first one,
the holy one—
where the trees say
nothing the toad says

nothing the dirt
says nothing and yet
what has always happened
keeps happening:

the trees flourish,
the toad leaps,
and out of the silent dirt
the blood-red roses rise.

Isn’t that the truth?  Wishing you everything—what we label the bad and the good—for without the whole kit-and-kaboodle, you cannot live life.

[Post image: Rose by FlorinN on stock.xchng]

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