Talking To My Son Before Sleep

“Which is bigger,” he asks me, “the ocean or sky,”
and I want to tell him the heart, which even today
has been practicing vastness, is learning to say yes

in new languages, learning to stretch beyond
the center, beyond the lips, learning to be more moon
and less woman, to reflect light without owning it,

learning to lose whatever it has used before as a measure.
This is the way I want to love: in an idiom stronger
than tongues, I want to love in the way that tides pull

and release, like the moon which holds without touch,
I want to invite the sky to create a bigger space in me
a place spacious enough to hold all the wings

of the passing moment. I want to be buoyant enough
to carry all of love’s weight. “The sky,” I say.
“The sky is bigger, but the ocean is also wide.”

He is satisfied by my words, closes his eyes.
In my chest, a star falls. In my belly
strong tug of tides.

~~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer ~~

Advertisement

Today

“Do you think today is just another day in your life?

It’s not just another day. It’s the one day that is given to you today. It’s given to you. It’s a gift. It’s the only gift that you have right now. And the only appropriate response is gratefulness.

If you do nothing else, cultivate that response through the great gift that this unique day is. If you learn to respond as if it were the first day in your life and the very last day then you will have spent this day very well…

I wish that you would open your heart to all these blessings and let them flow through you so that everyone who you will meet on this day will be blessed by you. Just by your eyes, by your smile, by your touch. Just by your presence. Let the gratefulness overflow into blessing all around you.

Then it will really be a good day.”

~~ Brother David Steindl-Rast ~~

Rhapsody Part 7

If you are in the garden, I will dress myself in leaves.
If you are in the sea I will slide into that
smooth blue nest, I will talk fish, I will adore salt.
But if you are sad, I will not dress myself in desolation.
I will present myself with all the laughters I can muster.
And if you are angry I will come, calm and steady, with
some small and easy story.

Promises, promises, promises! The tongue jabbers, the heart
strives, fails, strives again. The world is perfect.
Love, however, is an opera, a history, a long walk, that
includes falling and rising, falling and rising, while
the heart stays as sweet as a peach, as radiant and
grateful as the deep leaved hills.

~~ Mary Oliver ~~