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Posts Tagged ‘stellar's jay’

For This, I Walk Outside

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 8, 2024| 9 Comments »


 
 
Not to escape the world,
but to be more wholly in it.
Sharp cold stings my cheeks—
not like a slap, but like the thrilling burn
of whiskey as it blazes down the throat—
the kind of wild aliveness
that brooks no choice
but to wake up to life,
to champion it, to know life
as the most wondrous thing
even as I steep in the ugliness
we humans commit.
This is what life asks of us.
I walk outside to be more wholly here,
here the way the Stellar’s jay is here.
Even on the coldest day,
its every fluffing, every peck, every head bob,
every flight is in service to life.
It’s never confused about its purpose.
I want to be in service.
Outside, everything is teacher:
the cold, the snow, the bird, the day,
this fallible, fabulous human race,
this improbable, beautiful planet in space.
To serve life, I must inhabit it wholly
and be inhabited by it, too.
As if it all could end tonight.
As if it goes on forever.
 

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On the Third Day of Christmas, a Gift

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on December 28, 2020| 1 Comment »


 
No French hens, but
the Stellar’s jays arrived
at the feeder as always
in a squawk of bright blue,
inquisitive, cocking
their crested heads
and letting their dark eyes
take in everything.
Everything, no matter
how dingy, how small, is worthy
of their attention,
even the black seed, even
the wind, even the bark,
even this woman standing
in the snow, listening.
 

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