Finding inspiration in every moment, every small movement: camping allows time for peace and quiet observation, for recording everything green, all the aches, the rawness of sleeping on the ground with the tick count high. I wake as the sun rises and not because my alarm tells me so but because we are ready and the sun is low, the mist has a blue-purple hue and we cannot see where the ground and the sky separate.
I think of poet Mary Oliver, how her words dig into the earth. I think of my own words, how the natural world rises up as metaphor, as driving force and symbol.
I leave you with these words:
Poppies
by Mary Oliver
The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation
of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn't a place
in this world that doesn't
sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage
shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,
black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.
But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,
when it's done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,
touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—
and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—deep, blue night?
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