#Adventword Day 24: Delight

MINDFUL by Mary Oliver from Why I Wake Early (Beacon Press)
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for—
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world—
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant—
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these—
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

Mary Oliver Monday - Don't tell the CDC we're starting an epidemic

Mozart, for Example by Mary Oliver from Thirst (Beacon Press)
All the quick notes
Mozart didn’t have time to use
before he entered the cloud boat

are falling now from the beaks
of the finches
that have gathered from the joyous summer

into the hard winter
and, like Mozart, they speak of nothingbut light and delight,

though it is true, the heavy blades of the world
are still pounding underneath.
And this is what you can do too, maybe,

if you live simply and with a lyrical heart
in the cumbered neighborhoods or even,
as Mozart sometimes managed to, in a palace,

offering tune after tune after tune,
making some hard-hearted prince
prudent and kind, just by being happy.


I'm posting this poem in honor of someone who will likely never see it.  I don't know much about him.  I don't know his name or where he lives.  I don't know who his friends or family are.  I don't even know if he has friends or family, although I can't imagine he doesn't.  I don't know if he's gay or straight, partnered or single.  I don't know if he's Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Buddhist or Hindu or Zoroastrian or unaffiliated or other.  

All I know is that just when I needed a shot of positive energy this weekend, there he was, bouncing down Connecticut Avenue by the firehouse in Kensington, beaming at everyone he saw.  He exuded joy and I found myself smiling as I drove past, infected by his contagious smile.  

So thank you, happy-guy-walking-down-the-street with your backpack on.  Today I'll do my best to help spread the epidemic of light and delight, just by being happy.  

In case you need a little motivation and don't have a bouncy guy in a backpack walking down the street to inspire you, here's a 30 second clip from the brilliant movie, Amadeus, of Tom Hulce as Mozart laughing. 

A Glimmer of Light for a Rainy Mary Oliver Monday

Poppies by Mary Oliver from New and Selected Poems:  Volume One (Beacon Press)
The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn't a place
in this world that doesn't

sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage

shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,

black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,

when it's done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,

touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—

and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?

So many invitations to be happy and opportunities to be washed in the river of earthly delight this rainy Monday morning . . . the moment early this morning when there was a sudden absence of noise-- no traffic, no birds-- and all I could hear was the rain hitting the leaves on the maple tree outside my bedroom window, looking out that same window when I got out of bed an hour later and seeing a teeny tiny rabbit eating violets in the back yard, a breakfast of strong coffee and good watermelon and a morning of quiet writing time at my desk.  Oh-- and of course the poppies I planted last weekend nodding their red-heads in the rain.

What is inviting you to delight, to holiness, to redemption today?

Billy Collins Sunday - This Little Piggy Went to Market

THIS LITTLE PIGGY WENT TO MARKET      
by Billy Collins from Ballistics (Random House)

is the usual thing to say when you begin
pulling on the toes of a small child,
and I have never had a problem with that.
I could easily picture the piggy with his basket
and his trotters kicking up the dust on an imaginary road.

What always stopped me in my tracks was
the middle toe -- this little piggy ate roast beef.
I mean I enjoy a roast beef sandwich
with lettuce and tomato and a dollop of horseradish,
but I cannot see a pig ordering that in a delicatessen.

I am probably being too literal-minded here --
I am even wondering why it's called "horseradish."
I should just go along with the beautiful nonsense
of the nursery, float downstream on its waters.
After all, Little Jack Horner speaks to me deeply.

I don't want to be the one to ruin the children's party
by asking unnecessary questions about Puss in Boots
or, again, the implications of a pig eating beef.
By the way, I am completely down with going
"Wee wee wee" all the way home,
having done that many times and knowing exactly how it feels.

When I woke up this morning and realized that April Fool's Day coincided with Billy Collins Sunday, I decided it was the perfect day for  a poem that contains the phrase "beautiful nonsense."
Although some nursery rhymes are thinly veiled political jibes or lessons in history, This Little Piggy is purely a nonsense rhyme written to delight children. 

Allowing ourselves to be delighted, to revel in beauty and nonsense, to put aside our critical thinking caps that  make us wonder why a pig would eat roast beef (and the one who didn't have any?  was it by choice?  was she a vegetarian sow?,  to be in the moment so we can be present and grateful for the things that make us go, "wee!"-- good aspirations for this April Fool's Sunday.