jackiedoherty.org

“What is it you plan on doing with your one wild and precious life?” is a line from a Mary Oliver poem that circled my head this morning when I woke early and couldn’t get back to sleep. My prayer is to spend my life with people I love, contributing something meaningful. As a recent convert to Oliver, a prolific, best-selling poet whose words resonate with simple beauty, I can’t wait to get her latest book Thirst Red Bird. For today, here is a poem fromThirst shared by Pastor Cindy Worthington-Berry, who herself always seems to be a light in my day:

“When I Am Among Trees” by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks, and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.” The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”