The Big Summer Sit 2024

This morning's Mary Oliver speaks directly to practice

Landscape

Isn't it plain the sheets of moss, except they that

they have no tongues, could lecture all day if they wanted about

spiritual patience? Isn't it clear

the black oaks along the path are standing

as though they were the most fragile of flowers?

Every morning I walk like this around

the pond, thinking : if the doors of my heart

ever close, I am as good as dead.

Every morning, so far , I'm alive. And now

the crows break off from the rest of the darkness

and burst up into the sky --as though

all night they had thought of what they would like

their lives to be, and imagined

their strong, thick wings