Percy (Nine)

Your friend is coming I say
to Percy, and name a name

and he runs to the door, his
wide mouth in its laugh-shape,

and waves, since he has one, his tail.
Emerson, I am trying to live,

as you said we must, the examined life.
But there are days I wish

there was less in my head to examine,
Not to speak of the busy heart. How

would it be to be Percy, I wonder, not
thinking, not weighing anything, just running forward.

Mary Oliver, Red Bird

Instructions for living a life:
Pat attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Mary Oliver, excerpt #4 from “Sometime”, Red Bird

The Seed Cracked Open

It used to be
That when I would wake in the morning
I could with confidence say,
“What am ‘I’ going to
Do?”

That was before the seed
Cracked open.

Now Hafiz is certain:

There are two of us housed
In this body,

Doing the shopping together in the market and
Tickling each other
While fixing the evening’s food.

Now when I awake
All the internal instruments play the same music;

“God, what love-mischief cab ‘We’ do
For the world
Today?”

Hafiz, A Sufi Master