May 31, 2021

be ready

The end of May has arrived. The new season starts with new possibilities after our long season of isolation and insulation. I am somewhere between relief and grief. I expect you are too.

We spent a glorious weekend visiting with vaccinated friends and family, hugs all around, smiling faces without masks, reveling in each other, interspersed with gardening, hands covered in dirt. Sweet relief and renewed possibilities are here now. Also, remembering our experiences over the course of the pandemic eon is important too. Let’s not forget them.

Time for more poetry, this time from the honest and hopeful poetry of William Stafford.

You reading this be ready

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this 
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life –

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

by William Stafford