Saturday Short

Saturday morning. Sunshine. The last of the August hay-bale-yellow kind maybe. And what it brings: many possibilities on the horizon, like a host of amber-lit lanterns being set off into sky. (The Chinese lanterns pictured; stumbled across these surprisingly in a shop yesterday and was so tempted to buy them. The ritual of lighting and setting off, all in the name of new beginnings, is one I find hard to resist. It'd be like a small-scale meteor shower, the Perseids part two, the ones we never did get to see here...)
 

So just a short entry today. Just a few words before the day begins. Before an afternoon of coffee and newspaper-browsing, punctuated by some sun-lounging and day-dreaming in between, and an evening of laissez-faire luxury. Because Saturday is the one day where we seem able to throw off the shackles off the week. It comes like a breath of fresh air at the end of the week, fresh cotton, a green-grass rest.
 

The sun is shining today, like a long-awaited encore. And what better way to start a sunny day than with Mary Oliver, the American spiritual-nature poet, whose poems are truly uplifting in their awe-filled and joyful look at the world. (If a poem was ever a vitamin for the soul, it's hers.) This poem captures the sentiments of a sunny day, how everything seems beautiful again and full of possibility and renewal. Which could also be said to be the predominant feelings in any of Oliver's poems.

Enjoy.

~ Siobhán.


'Morning Poem' -Mary Oliver 

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
 

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
 

and fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
 

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
 

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging —
 

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted —
 

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
 

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.