In such ordinary ways
There is a time to talk – and a time to simply shut up and listen to those who are wiser and more eloquent than I can ever be. People like Simon Jenkins who, in today’s Guardian, asks:
Television is fine for gorillas and glaciers, but can it really do human beings?
Indeed. Beautiful article; interesting thoughts.
And I’ll leave you with yet another poem, by Jane Hirshfield:
In a net of blue and gold
When the moored boat lifts, for its moment,
out of the water like a small cloud -
this is when I understand.
It floats there, defying the stillness to break,
its white hull doubled on the surface smooth as glass.
A minor miracle, utterly purposeless.
Even the bird on the bow-line takes it in stride,
barely shifting his weight before resuming
whatever musing it is birds do;
and the fish continue their placid, midday
truce with the world, suspended a few feet below.
I catch their gleam, the jeweled, reflecting scales,
small dragons guarding common enough treasure.
And wonder how, bound to each other as we are
in a net of blue and gold,
we fail so often, in such ordinary ways.
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