What can I possibly want in a world that has already given me everything? August 27, 2020 . Matins Oh, how he loved the bell in the garden, rusted, silent, cool — and when the first leaf fell, he laughed, and wept, like a fool — and while he sat, on a stone, with his white hair, his old hands let go of the world. . [ 851 ]
Up at three-thirty, for no particular reason, other than, like an oft-reheated meal, the sleeper was done, and then some. But the night joys are great ones, with dawn coming on. Dawn, the grand assumption. It is a cricket-morning, the first of the late-summer, early-fall season. Crickets cast no votes. They do not need mail boxes or polling places. They have no gerrymandered districts. They have rhythm and purpose. They […]
I walked early yesterday morning in a heavy mist, grateful the ocean had come for a visit. In August, with the grapes ripening, the peaches rising, the berries falling, and the tomatoes fat on the vine, I feel as conscious as a bee winging home to the hive, bearing his load of pollen. I feel as sad and as serious as a clown’s smile. I feel joy. The mist gave […]
It must be difficult for a flag-waver, virus-spreader, and bigot to imagine himself on a long journey in the hold of a disease-infested seafaring kettle, and emerging later to stand on the auction block; it must be difficult for him, or her, to imagine the lash of the whip, the iron ring, or passing even one day as a slave in the fields. But once he does — for I […]
After a hot day yesterday, there was a strong breeze most of the evening. This morning I noticed a tiny spider at the center of its web, suspended between two dahlias about eight feet apart. The sunlight had just illuminated the brave explorer, making it glow. I thought about the instant it had let go and allowed itself to be carried by the wind across the wide chasm, and wondered […]
The news is a mass addiction. Every minute of every day, millions of people return to it, in quiet desperation, in anger, in distraction, for another dose, another fix. It’s a form of collective hysteria, this thirst and hunger for the negative and obvious, this fear of not knowing what is already known, and which represents only a tiny portion of what it means to be alive in this wondrous […]
Let’s just say these sprouted here, and that we decided to let them grow. Let’s say the rain came, and that our hoes and shovels broke. Let’s say we are weeds ourselves. Yes, and before we die, let us recognize the truth. Weeds I love the weeds growing around my door, Familiar, independent, working without pay. They would be on a hillside if they could, And someday will be […]
In a space I can traverse in two or three steps, an ant or other creature of similar or lesser size can revel and burrow for days — can pass whole lifetimes and seasons, if the space is left undisturbed. This is why, around the house, I’ve established wilderness areas. Passersby, if they notice them, might see them as weed patches or dandelion infestations. But the miracles that unfold there […]
A Japanese maple has sprouted not far from our front door, a few feet west of its lacy red mother. It’s about two inches tall and has two small, perfect leaves, as red as red can be when red dreams of purple, evidence of the joy moving up and down inside its tiny thin trunk. Birth, growth, mist, dew, fog, frost, rain, wind — how alike our experiences have been! […]
Thoreau’s journal entry for July 13, 1852, begins with this one-thought paragraph: A journal, a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy. I found it waiting for me this morning when I opened the book to pick up from where I had left off reading yesterday. Upon reading it, I realized it had waited almost one hundred sixty-eight years. I closed the book. One relishes […]
