for J. and A.

For years passed well (theirs), and for years passed just so slightly not quite right (ours)--a poem about love, but not exactly, for the two celebrating their anniversary today. And remembering a grand adventure that was not the 'beginning of forever' that I thought it might be: three years ago tonight.

Mindful

Every day
I see or I hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It is what I was born for--
to look, to listen

to lose myself
inside this soft 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, from New and Selected Poems, Volume Two]

{and of course Nick}