Category: wonder

Such a Full Tide

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We walked downhill
to the beach, her hand in mine,
small step after small step.
She said Hi to the doggie on the leash,
Hi Mommy to a woman passing
on the street, Hi Daddy to a bearded man.
On the sand, she stared transfixed
at the water, the slight waves,
the tide not yet pulling out.
She looked up toward a flap of wings.
Bird, I said, pointing at the seagull,
and she mimicked, Bird,
then turned her gaze back
to the waves’ slow slapping.
Later I sat, looking at trees below me,
a hint of haze burning off the far bay,
the world busy working and sailing,
waking, while I sat waiting as Evie napped
that quiet Maine morning,
the full tide of grandmotherhood
lapping my shore.
~Laura Foley, “Full Tide” from It’s This 

They each carried a balloon from a special event for kids and their families.

It had been a morning of our family being together, just because. Being a grandparent needs no other reason other than “just because.”

Big sister was saying how she planned to take her balloon to school on Monday to show her friends. She was enjoying the balloon’s bobbing and weaving in the air … until suddenly it popped, causing her to jump and then she had nothing left but tatters in her hand.

Her face crumpled and the tears began to flow.

Little brother gripped his balloon more tightly, looking at his sister’s tears and worrying the same thing might happen to his balloon. His face contorted, ready to cry right along with her. And then there was a moment of clarity and insight in his eyes.

He handed his balloon to her. He said, “here, you can have mine.” And though he was clearly sad at the thought of having no balloon himself, his eyes were shining with proud tears.

He had discovered what it meant to sacrifice, to comfort and care for someone he loved.

She was speechless. She held his balloon gently, struggling to know how to respond. If it was even possible, she loved him so much more in that moment.

So their parents said to her brother, “we think that gift deserves stopping for a hot chocolate on the way home.”

Big sister looked at her parents, looked again at her little brother, and handed the balloon back to him, saying “why don’t we share?”

Hot chocolate makes all things wonderful and cozy and better, when shared.


Especially for weeping, laughing, full-to-the-brim-with-love grandparents.

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Like a Mist Drying

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Morning glories, pale as a mist drying,
fade from the heat of the day, but already
hunchback bees in pirate pants and with peg-leg
hooks have found and are boarding them.

This could do for the sack of the imaginary
fleet. The raiders loot the galleons even as they
one by one vanish and leave still real
only what has been snatched out of the spell.

I’ve never seen bees more purposeful except
when the hive is threatened. They know
the good of it must be grabbed and hauled
before the whole feast wisps off.

They swarm in light and, fast, dive in,
then drone out, slow, their pantaloons heavy
with gold and sunlight. The line of them,
like thin smoke, wafts over the hedge.

And back again to find the fleet gone.
Well, they got this day’s good of it. Off
they cruise to what stays open longer.
Nothing green gives honey. And by now

you’d have to look twice to see more than green
where all those white sails trembled
when the world was misty and open
and the prize was there to be taken.
~John Ciardi “Bees and Morning Glories” from The Collected Poems of John Ciardi.

Happiness is like a morning glory:
yesterday’s won’t bloom again;
tomorrow’s hasn’t opened yet.
Only today’s flower can be enjoyed today.
Be happy this very moment,
and you’ll learn how to be happy always.
~ Goswami Kriyananda

I am alive — I guess —
The Branches on my Hand
Are full of Morning Glory —
~Emily Dickinson

Now I’m at seventy,
no longer defined by ambition or career,
I open up misty every morning with a new bloom,
aware what I’ve left undone before wilting away.

A daily unfurling is a chance to:
Start afresh.
Welcome visitors.
Hold hearts gently.
Hum as I walk.
Sometimes just sit in awed silence.
Watch out the window.
Feed those who look hungry.

Each new opening, each new day,
so to leave a little less left undone.

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When Yellow Leaves, or None, or Few…

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That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.

This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
~William Shakespeare Sonnet 73

I used to think youth has it all
– strength, beauty, energy-
but now I know better.

There is deep treasure in slowing down,
this leisurely leave-taking;
the finite becoming infinite
with limitless loving.

Without our aging
we’d never change up
who we are
so as to become so much more:

enriched, vibrant,
shining passionately
until the very last moment
of letting go.

To love well
To love strong
To love as if
To love because
nothing else matters.

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Cold Water on a Tender Tooth

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Last evening,
As I drove into this small valley,
I saw a low-hanging cloud
Wandering through the trees.
It circled like a school of fish
Around the dun-colored hay bales.
Reaching out its foggy hands
To stroke the legs of a perfect doe
Quietly grazing in a neighbor’s mule pasture.

  I stopped the car
And stepping out into the blue twilight,
A wet mist brushed my face,
And then it was gone.
It was not unfriendly,
But it was not inclined to tell its secrets.

  I am in love with the untamed things,
The cloud, the doe,
Water, air and light.
I am filled with such tenderness
For ordinary things:
The practical mule, the pasture,
A perfect spiral of gathered hay.
And although I should not be,
Consistent as it is,
I am always surprised
By the way my heart will open
So completely and unexpectedly,
With a rush and an ache,
Like a sip of cold water
On a tender tooth.
~Carrie Newcomer “In the Hayfield” from A Permeable Life: Poems & Essays

deer running in the foreground

Cool water on a tender tooth describes it exactly:

a moment of absolute wonder
brings exquisite tears to my eyes.
I’m so opened and exposed as to be painful,
feeling a clarity of being both sharp and focused.

it’s gone as quickly as it came,
but knowing it was there – unforgettable –
and knowing it is forever
only a memory,
both hurts,
and comforts…

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Intended for Joy

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There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
~John Calvin as quoted in  John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (Oxford, 1988) by William J. Bouwsma

It is too easy to become blinded to the glory surrounding us if we allow it to seem routine and commonplace. 

I can’t remember the last time I celebrated a blade of grass, given how focused I am in mowing it into conformity and submission. 

During the summer months, I’m seldom up early enough to witness the pink sunrise. In the winter, I’m too busy making dinner to take time to watch the sun paint the sky red as it sets.

I miss opportunities to stop and notice what surrounds me innumerable times a day. It takes only a moment of recognition and appreciation to feel the joy, and for that moment time stands still.  So life stretches a little longer when I stop to acknowledge the intention of creation as an endless reservoir of rejoicing.  

If a blade of grass, if a palette of color,
if all this is made for joy,
then perhaps, so am I.
Even colorless, commonplace, sometimes stormy me.
Indeed, so am I.

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Tell About It

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Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
― Mary Oliver

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields…
Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.
~Mary Oliver from “Why I Wake Early”

(to remind myself)

i  

Make a place to sit down.  
Sit down. Be quiet.  
You must depend upon  
affection, reading, knowledge,  
skill—more of each  
than you have—inspiration,  
work, growing older, patience,  
for patience joins time  
to eternity.

ii  

Breathe with unconditional breath  
the unconditioned air.  
Stay away from anything  
that obscures the place it is in.  
There are no unsacred places;  
there are only sacred places  
and desecrated places.  

iii  

Accept what comes from silence.  
Make the best you can of it.  
Of the little words that come  
out of the silence, like prayers  
prayed back to the one who prays,  
make a poem that does not disturb  
the silence from which it came.
~Wendell Berry from “How to Be a Poet”

Here I am, telling you what I pluck out of silence every morning,
tossing my prayer to the world to share
what is astonishing to me
so as not to forget each moment.

Here you are, listening to this silence every morning,
reacting with kindness, receiving my heart –
this is even more astonishing to me
and sacred.

Thank you for being here to see what I find.
Thank you for sharing with others in your life.
Thank you for letting me know it makes a difference.
Thank you for making the best of my little words and pictures.

Welcome back, each and every day.
Happy you are here.

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What If You Dreamed…

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What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to heaven
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flower in your hand
Ah, what then?
~Samuel Coleridge  “What if you slept”

What do our dreams tell us of heaven?

Perhaps our dreams are lush with exotic flowers
never imagined growing in earthly soil.

We hold tightly to a vision
of divinely strange and beautiful,
to remind us of heaven in our waking hours.

My dream of heaven blooms plain and simple,
strangely beautiful in its familiarity,
held firmly in my hand each day.

The dreams welcome me home, asleep or awake.

Ah, what then?
What if heaven is the divine brought home in our hand?

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Approaching the End of September

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it rained in my sleep
and in the morning the fields were wet

I dreamed of artillery
of the thunder of horses

in the morning the fields were strewn
with twigs and leaves

as if after a battle
or a sudden journey

I went to sleep in the summer
I dreamed of rain

in the morning the fields were wet
and it was autumn
~Linda Pastan “September”

I can choose to fight the inevitable march of time
with sourness, sighs and sorrow,
thus arm myself with bitterness for what is no more,

or I can flow unmoved for as long as I can stay afloat,
barely aware of the passage of all taking place around me,

or I can smile at awaking each morning,
whether to sun or wind or rain and thunder,
grateful I’ve been given one more day to get it right,

or at least care enough to keep trying.

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Beautiful Changes

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One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides   
The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies
On water; it glides
So from the walker, it turns
Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you   
Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed   
By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;   
As a mantis, arranged
On a green leaf, grows
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves   
Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says   
They are not only yours; the beautiful changes   
In such kind ways,   
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose   
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.
~Richard Wilbur “The Beautiful Changes”

I am changed again, as I blend into autumn.

We can’t help but be transformed by everything around us, you know.

Beautiful is the dying meadow, the shedding of dry reddened leaves,
the tidal wave of wildflowers nodding goodbye until next summer.

Beauty is beheld with wonder and then lost to the ages. We cannot change what we see, but treasure its transience, as we cherish our own brief moments here.

We hold on lightly, ready to let go when the time comes.
What comes next is beautiful beyond imagining.

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A World Too Beautiful

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O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,– Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me,– let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay “God’s World”

Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. 
Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?
– every, every minute? 
I’m ready to go back. I should have listened to you.
That’s all human beings are!
Just blind people.
~Thornton Wilder, from Emily’s monologue in Our Town

Let me not wear blinders through my days.
Let me see and hear and feel it all
even when it seems too much to bear.

Lord,  prepare me to be so whelmed at your world, that
Heaven itself will be familiar, and not that far,
Just round the corner.

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