on waking early

usually i write some grand treatise on the many kinds of love for Valentine's Day. this year, i really took delight (Delight in French, see also verb tenses ravir, joie, plaisir) in the fact that a friend not only noticed but remembered and acted upon something i love: poetry. in particular a mary oliver collection that i had not yet read. so deep was my delight that i didn't even need to possess the pages, the remembrance was enough. the pages were a bonus though and i sat with them watching a sunset i wondered if anyone else was seeing while reading the entire book cover to cover. here is one of many favorites to share with you this month of hearts, love, words:

mindful

every day i see or i hear something that more or less
kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.
it is 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
(from her collection "why i wake early")