A Thousand Days

It seems this is my 1000th blip entry.
I have a lovely poetry anthology by Mary Oliver
entitled 'A Thousand Mornings' .
Browsing through today I found this one to share today on Blip.

I Happen To Be Standing by Mary Oliver

' I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with thing of little importance, in full self-attendance. A condition I can’t really
call being alive

Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why. And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t. That’s your business.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.'

I have been struggling these last weeks making time to feel that my involvement in Blip is meaningful. I will catch up with your journals soon.