Why I Wake Early

by Mary Oliver

Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.

I believe I will never quite know. Though I play at the edges of knowing, truly I know our part is not knowing,

All I know is, there was a light that lingered, for hours, under her eyelids—that made a difference when she went back to a difficult house, at the end of the day.

Whatever the subject, the morning sun glimmers it.

Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!

Loving the earth, seeing what has been done to it, I grow sharp, I grow cold.

Impossible to believe we need so much as the world wants us to buy. I have more clothes, lamps, dishes, paper clips than I could possibly use before I die.

Oh, I would like to live in an empty house, with vines for walls, and a carpet of grass. No planks, no plastic, no fiberglass.

Old and cold I will lie apart from all this buying and selling, with only the bea...

Eat, drink, be happy. Accept the miracle. Accept, too, each spoken word spoken with love.

Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.