“Every day I see or hear something

that more or less fills me with delight,

that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.

It was what I was born for

--to look, to listen, to lose myself inside this 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, adapted                                                      

...read more by clicking on the link to our latest issue below!

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