Monday, March 11, 2013

I Go Down to the Shore

I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall-
What should I do?  And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.

What is the longest amount of days in a row you have been miserable?  I am thinking that I might for myself say 400, and am currently just now finishing that long stretch where it has been hard to work, and wondering if I could even return to work.

Silly me. Silly humans.  We are always working - like a hummingbird flying around a flower, eating, surviving, fighting, dying.

I think God knows no particulars of this and that work.  That is a box we humans create, and into which we attempt to stuff as much activity as possible. What's the use of damning the river, caging the bird, or boxing ourselves into this or that?  

We are here to be beautiful useless.


5 comments:

  1. Thank you for your comment, Evi, which reminded me to come back and have a look at your site. What a beautiful poem from Mary Oiver: they have such a poetic simplicity, yet her poems are profound. Love this one. It resonates - and your words too. In fact I was thinking about this recently. Particularly in Britain at the moment we have this culture of tinkering and tinkering and changing and this all requires a lot of beavering - and sometimes I wonder what it's all for!

    ReplyDelete
  2. What is it all for? Beautiful useless?

    Thanks for writing and care to you.

    LoraKim

    ReplyDelete
  3. i've been miserable for days, too. and i hate my job with an intensity so profound i wonder how i get up in the morning. i actually called in sick today. the exhaustion i feel from my job makes me lose my personality. i wonder if hummingbirds feel this way. though sometimes when one keeeps busy with survival they might escape pain, psychic pain. i learned this from may sarton.. thanks so much for your blog. i believe, without equivocation, that miss oliver saves lives.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I wonder how you are doing today? Is the beautiful humming bird of your spirit finding a way to fly?

    Here's to saving lives, each others I believe in this sharing,

    LoraKim

    ReplyDelete