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He made the circles of the days and the seasons to close tightly, and forever— then open again.
until the whole earth has turned around and the silver moon becomes the golden sun— as the lily absolutely knew it would, which is itself, isn’t it, the perfect prayer?
Oh Lord, how shining and festive is your gift to us, if we only look, and see.
It’s like a schoolhouse of little words, thousands of words. First you figure out what each one means by itself, the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop full of moonlight. Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.
Where will the pond lilies go to continue living their simple, penniless lives, lifting their faces of gold?
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. And I suppose sometime I will. Old and cold I will lie apart from all this buying and selling, with only the beautiful earth in my heart.
I live in the open mindedness of not knowing enough about anything. It was beautiful.
Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.
All things are inventions of holiness. Some more rascally than others. I’m on that list too, though I don’t know exactly where.
It is 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.
What do I know. But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given, to see what is plain; what the sun lights up willingly; for example—I think this as I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch— the suitability of the field for the daisies, and the daisies for the field.
