Dark thoughts and doubts have a way of sneaking in even when you are seemingly content. They linger, make a space in your head, question your motivation, the path you have taken and the choices you have made. This volume is about getting past that second-guessing and soldiering on. So, gather yourself, seek the bluebird, rise like the bread and meet yourself again.
On Days When – Dean Atta
you feel like a wilting garden,
gather yourself, roll up
your lawn, bouquet
your flowers, grab
your weeds.
You are a wild thing who plays
at being tame.
You are rich with life
beneath the surface.
You don’t have to show leaf and
petal
to be living.
You are soil and insect and root.
What Gorgeous Thing – Mary Oliver
I do not know what gorgeous thing
The bluebird keeps saying,
His voice easing out of his throat,
beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
whatever it is. Sometimes,
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
in the world that is without
questions that can’t and probably
never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.
I Am Not Done Yet – Lucille Clifton
as possible as yeast
as imminent as bread
a collection of safe habits
a collection of cares
less certain than i seem
more certain than i was
a changed changer
i continue to continue
where i have been
most of my lives is
where i’m going
Final Curve – Langston Hughes
When you turn the corner
And you run into yourself
Then you know that you have turned
All the corners that are left
Our Real Work – Wendell Berry
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
A Thousand Mornings 