may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old
-e. e. cummings, an excerpt from “may my heart always be open”
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.
–Wallace Stevens, from “Sunday Morning”
Dust of Snow
- Robert Frost
The way a crowShook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
The Peace of Wild Things
-Wendell Berry
When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
