Our True Heritage

The cosmos is filled with precious gems.
I want to offer a handful of them to you this morning.
Each moment you are alive is a gem,
shining through and containing earth and sky,
water and clouds.

It needs you to breathe gently
for the miracles to be displayed.
Suddenly you hear the birds singing,
the pines chanting,
see the flowers blooming,
the blue sky,
the white clouds,
the smile and the marvelous look
of your beloved.

You, the richest person on Earth,
who have been going around begging for a living,
stop being the destitute child.
Come back and claim your heritage.
We should enjoy our happiness
and offer it to everyone.
Cherish this very moment.
Let go of the stream of distress
and embrace life fully in your arms.

From "Call Me By My True Names" The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh.

Burlington, Vermont

In the lovely free public library

only library I ever met

that loans out garden tools

as well as books

rakes & long-handled clippers

from large buckets by the counter

I sat in a peaceful room

with citizens I will never know

reading about far-away war

war I am paying for

war I don’t want & never wanted

& put my head down

on the smooth wooden table

wishing to weep loudly or quietly

it did not matter

in the purifying presence of

women & men

shovels & hoes

devoted to growing

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches—
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead—
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging—

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted—

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

--Mary Oliver

(Sunrise in Wallingford, VT 4-7-19)