Thursday January 9
I know it’s off season to post a lovely song from the depths of summer, but it’s not perverse to make the point that these winter days will not last forever. Besides, there’s lots to be said, about weather and other deep matters such as the learning process, for the Lark’s astonishingly renewed inner energy.
Blessings from the north edge of McNichols Campus.
john sj
Mary Oliver today.
“The Lark”
And I have seen,
at dawn,
the lark
spin out of the long grass
and into the pink air –
its wings,
which are neither wide
nor overstrong,
fluttering –
the pectorals
ploughing and flashing
for nothing but altitude –
and the song
bursting
all the while
from the red throat.
And then he descends,
and is sorry.
His little head hangs
and he pants for breath
for a few moments
among the hoops of the grass,
which are crisp and dry,
where most of his living is done –
and then something summons him again
and up he goes,
his shoulders working,
his whole body almost collapsing and floating
to the edges of the world.
We are reconciled, I think,
to too much.
Better to be a bird, like this one –
an ornament of the eternal.
As he came down once, to the nest of the grass,
“Squander the day, but save the soul, ”
I heard him say.