An Invitation

..... to look up, look around, listen ...

To go?

In an age of convenience, we take life to go. We gulp coffee from paper cups with plastic lids. We eat our lunches with plastic forks from cardboard bowls. We drink while we walk, and eat while we talk. Because the next exciting thing is always calling to us from over there. Our lives happen while we relive the past or imagine the future. Seldom here. Seldom now. Seldom in the present.

We ignore the ordinary — in search of the extraordinary.¹

Image: Maud Longeval, @maoudienne

The only difference between an extraordinary life and an ordinary one is the extraordinary pleasures you find in ordinary things.
Veronique Vienne

---

Mary Oliver² invites us to listen … to an epic musical battle.

Oh do you have time
        to linger
                for just a little while
                       out of your busy

and very important day
        for the goldfinches
                that have gathered
                       in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
        to see who can sing
                the highest note,
                       or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
        or the most tender?
                Their strong, blunt beaks
                       drink the air

as they strive
        melodiously
                not for your sake
                       and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
        but for sheer delight and gratitude —
                believe us, they say,
                       it is a serious thing

just to be alive
        on this fresh morning
                in the broken world.
                       I beg of you,

do not walk by
        without pausing
                to attend to this
                       rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

I dip into poetry occasionally. I pick up a collection³ randomly. But I am often astonished to find that the poem I have randomly chosen is exactly the one that I needed at that particular moment. And so it is that I landed on this poem today.

Two singers battling for our attention — sweetly, softly.

Have an awe-some Monday!

1

Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth… These are the things to fear …

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi

2. This poem, Invitation, appeared in Red Bird, published in 2009.

3. The other poem I picked up from my hand written journal was also attention seeking — comically so, by Issa, one among the revered Japanese haiku triumvirate.

Mosquito at my ear —

does it think

I’m deaf?