All of Us

From In Switzerland by Raymond Carver

Manners for Living

Here is a little poem I think I wrote yesterday. I say think because sometimes I worry that what I think I've written is actually just something I read once and am regurgitating. I read so much poetry and so many quotes that it's hard to keep track of who said what. Truthfully, I don't think it should really matter, but many people would disagree I suppose. Not that I would want to take credit for someone else's work, I just don't think we should try to own words or images or ideas. And besides, I don't want people to think of ME when they read my thoughts, but the ideas themselves and the Truths they attempt to point to. Anyway, these words sounded particularly familiar when they came out. I googled them but nothing came up, so maybe I did write them? I don't really care, I just want to share them. But! Please do let me know if you know that someone else wrote it, so I can give them credit.

Walking through this life

I am unable to say

How and Why and What,

Just Yes and Please and Thank You.

photos taken at Shenandoah NP

Magnificent with Being!

Still by A. R. Ammons

I said I will find what is lowly

and put the roots of my identity

down there:

each day I'll wake up

and find the lowly nearby,

a handy focus and reminder,

a ready measure of my significance,

the voice by which I would be heard,

the wills, the kinds of selfishness

I could

freely adopt as my own:

but though I have looked everywhere,

I can find nothing

to give myself to:

everything is

magnificent with existence, is in

surfeit of glory:

nothing is diminished,

nothing has been diminished for me:

I said what is more lowly than the grass:

ah, underneath,

a ground-crust of dry-burnt moss:

I looked at it closely

and said this can be my habitat: but

nestling in I

found

below the brown exterior

green mechanisms beyond the intellect

awaiting resurrection in rain: so I got up

and ran saying there is nothing lowly in the universe:

I found a beggar:

he had stumps for legs: nobody was paying

him any attention: everybody went on by:

I nestled in and found his life:

there, love shook his body like a devastation:

I said

though I have looked everywhere

I can find nothing lowly

in the universe:

I whirled though transfigurations up and down,

transfigurations of size and shape and place:

at one sudden point came still,

stood in wonder:

moss, beggar, weed, tick, pine, self, magnificent

with being!