Hello friends and happy spring equinox to you. The world, she turns! I’m marking the day by celebrating all the early signs of Spring I can find, and I thought I’d share.
Much to see out there, friends!
I asked my book of Mary Oliver poetry to give me a poem for this newsletter and opened up to one called From the Book of Time (page 234 in Devotions). The first two lines are:
I rose this morning early as usual, and went to my desk
But it’s spring,
How perfect! Here’s the whole thing. It’s long, I thought about sharing just an excerpt, but then I couldn’t choose, so here it all is.
1. I rose this morning early as usual, and went to my desk But it’s spring, and the thrush is in the woods, somewhere in the twirled branches, and he is singing. And so, now, I am standing by the open door. And now I am stepping down onto the grass. I am touching a few leaves. I am noticing the way the yellow butterflies move together, in a twinkling cloud, over the field. And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening is the real work. Maybe the world, without us, is the real poem. 2. For how many years have you gone through the house shutting the windows, while the rain was still five miles away and veering, o plum-colored clouds, to the north, away from you and you did not even know enough to be sorry, you were glad those silver sheets, with the occasional golden staple, were sweeping on, elsewhere, violent and electric and uncontrollable–- and will you find yourself finally wanting to forget all enclosures, including the enclosure of yourself, o lonely leaf, and will you dash finally, frantically, to the windows and haul them open and lean out to the dark, silvered sky, to everything that is beyond capture, shouting I’m here, I’m here! Now, now, now, now, now. 3. I dreamed I was traveling from one country to another jogging on the back of a white horse whose hooves were the music of dust and gravel whose halter was made of the leafy braids of flowers, whose name was Earth. And it never grew tired though the sun went down like a thousand roses and the stars put their white faces in front of the black branches above us and then there was nothing around us but water and the white horse turned suddenly like a bolt of white cloth opening under the cloth cutter’s deft hands and became a swan. Its red tongue flickered out as it perceived my great surprise my huge and unruly pleasure my almost unmanageable relief.... 4. “‘Whoever shall be guided so far towards the mysteries of love, by contemplating beautiful things rightly in due order, is approaching the last grade. Suddenly he will behold a beauty marvelous in its nature, that very Beauty, Socrates, for the sake of which all the earlier hardships had been borne: in the first place, everlasting, and never being born nor perishing, neither increasing nor diminishing; secondly, not beautiful here and ugly there, not beautiful now and ugly then, not beautiful in one direction and ugly in another direction, not beautiful in one place and ugly in another place. Again, this beauty will not show itself like a face or hands or any bodily thing at all, nor as a discourse or a science, nor indeed as residing in anything, as in a living creature or in earth or heaven or anything else, but being by itself with itself always in simplicity; while all the beautiful things elsewhere partake of this beauty in such manner, that when they are born and perish it becomes neither less nor more and nothing at all happens to it…‘” 5. What secrets fly out of the earth when I push the shovel-edge, when I heave the dirt open? And if there are no secrets what is that smell that sweetness rising? What is my name, o what is my name that I may offer it back to the beautiful world? Have I walked long enough where the sea breaks raspingly all day and all night upon the pale sand? Have I admired sufficiently the little hurricane of the hummingbird? the heavy thumb of the blackberry? the falling star? 6. Count the roses, red and fluttering. Count the roses, wrinkled and salt. Each with its yellow lint at the center. Each with its honey pooled and ready. Do you have a question that can’t be answered? Do the stars frighten you by their heaviness and their endless number? Does it bother you, that mercy is so difficult to understand? For some souls it’s easy; they lie down on the sand and are soon asleep. For others, the mind shivers in its glacial palace, and won’t come. Yes, the mind takes a long time, is otherwise occupied than by happiness, and deep breathing. Now, in the distance, some bird is singing. And now I have gathered six or seven deep red, half-opened cups of petals between my hands, and now I have put my face against them and now I am moving my face back and forth, slowly, against them. The body is not much more than two feet and a tongue. Come to me, says the blue sky, and say the word. And finally even the mind comes running, like a wild thing, and lies down in the sand. Eternity is not later, or in any unfindable place. Roses, roses, roses, roses. 7. Even now I remember something the way a flower in a jar of water remembers its life in the perfect garden the way a flower in a jar of water remembers its life as a closed seed the way a flower in a jar of water steadies itself remembering itself long ago the plunging roots the gravel the rain the glossy stem the wings of the leaves the swords of the leaves rising and clashing for the rose of the sun the salt of the stars the crown of the wind the beds of the clouds the blue dream the unbreakable circle.
Just saying, I think actually we are a part of the real poem. And so, I sign off, sending my love to you, on the wind, from a cold and bright and vivid and alive Spring day. I’ll be back soon with the full moon newsletter.
XOXO,
Katelyn
Those purple ephemeral wonders! Really being dazzled by all the purple plants this year. 💜