perfect is a fault, and fault lines change

    The poet Wendell Berry wrote to his wife, 'The Wild Rose':

Sometimes...I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart.
Suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket...
and once again I am blessed, choosing
again what I chose before.
    Maybe that is the point of obstruction, of pain, of heartbreak, of those seemingly endless choices in life--those that, in the end, are not choices, and do not signify the end but only another page turning: the point is that we are being given the gift, the opportunity to say, voluntarily, willingly, consciously, with open heart, where before we said it with reservation or whispered a prayer to the moon while jumping in with hope and a dream but with fear, too--of saying, "I choose. I don't simply 'accept' or 'take' or 'see how it goes'. I choose."
    And I do choose.
    I do.

[Thank you, Heidi.]