“You might consider your own minor annoyances and turn one into a bell … let it be a bell to remind you to come back, and remember, soon all of this will be gone.” —David Keplinger, Another Shore (May 30, 2025)
And so today when the very slow driver
in front of me starts going ten miles
over the speed limit right when we get
to the passing lane, I imagine
my frustration is a bell. Instead
of calling him an idiot, as usual,
instead I think, Ding. Can you be
grateful to be alive right now?
Ding. Can you bless this body?
Delight in this canyon? Find joy
in the burgeoning green of spring?
Ding. Ding. Ding. Can you come home
to this moment and realize all belongs?
Even slow drivers who speed up.
Even your impatience. Ding.
Here’s your chance to imagine whatever
provokes you becomes a mindfulness bell.
There will come a time when you think
oh, what a lucky woman you were
to drive these roads at all. Could that time
be now? Ding. Ding. Oh that idio—. Ding.
Please, let him pull over. Don’t honk. Please.
Ding. Ding. Ding.