MINDFUL

Every day
I see or hear something that more or less
kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for – to look, to listen,
to lose myself inside this soft world – to instruct myself over and over
in joy,
and acclamation. Nor am I talking about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful, the very extravagant – but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations. Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself, how can you help
but grow wise with such teachings as these –
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine, the prayers that are made out of grass?

– Mary Oliver