Weekly Reading

Some Questions You Might Ask

Is the soul solid like iron?
Or is it tender and breakable,
like the wings of a moth in the beak of the owl?
Who has it, and who doesn’t?
I keep looking around me.
The face of the moose is as sad as the face of Jesus.
The swan opens her white wings slowly.
In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.
One question leads to another.
Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?
Like the eye of a hummingbird?
Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?
Why should I have it, and not the anteater who loves her children?
Why should I have it, and not the camel?
Come to think about it, what about the maple trees?
What about the blue iris?
What about the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?
What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?
What about the grass?
~ Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

This World

I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open and becomes a star.
The ants bore into the peony bud and there is a dark
pinprick well of sweetness.
As for the stones on the beach, forget it.
Each one could be set in gold.
So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds
were singing.
And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music
out of their leaves.
And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and
beautiful silence
as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too
hurried to hear it.
As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs
even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,
and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,
so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being
locked up in gold.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Weekly Reading

What Was Once the Largest Shopping Center in Northern Ohio Was Built Where There Had Been a Pond I Used to Visit Every Summer Afternoon

Loving the earth, seeing what has been done to it,
I grow sharp, I grow cold.

Where will the trilliums go, and the coltsfoot?
Where will the pond lilies go to continue living
their simple, penniless lives, lifting
their faces of gold?

Impossible to believe we need so much
as the world wants us to buy.
I have more clothes, lamps, dishes, paper clips
than I could possibly use before I die.

Oh, I would like to live in an empty house,
with vines for walls, and a carpet of grass.
No planks, no plastic, no fiberglass.

And I suppose sometime I will.
Old and cold I will lie apart
from all this buying and selling, with only
the beautiful earth in my heart.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

The Ocean Moving Steadily All Night
Stay with us.
Don’t sink to the bottom
like a fish going to sleep.
Be with the ocean moving
steadily all night,
not scattered like a rainstorm.
The spring we’re looking for is somewhere in this murkiness.
See the night-lights up there
traveling together, the candle awake in its gold dish.
Don’t slide into the cracks of the ground like spilled mercury.
When the full moon comes out,
look around.
~Rumi

Weekly Reading

Choice II
I do not respond
in predictable ways,
like a rat in a maze.

I am not controlled
by people or events.

I make conscious choices
that put me
in control of my life.

I think, then act,
and watch my life transform.

Spirit turns
the darkness before me
into light.

When blind to solutions at hand,
when the way seems blocked,
I trust divine intelligence
to reveal answers
and show the way
to paths I have not known.
~Gabriel Halpern

Weekly Reading

The Uses of Sorrow
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading

Ease
I am unhurried and relaxed.
I exude an aura
of peace and goodwill.

I know in spirit,there is only
the eternal now.

I do not force issues.
I let my goals and aspirations
unfold one at a time.

I accomplish all
that needs to be done
easily and efficiently.

I am in the right place
at the right time.

My body responds
to my sense of order
and perfect timing.

I enjoy each moment of ease,
this day.

~Gabriel Halpern