Mindful

Everyday
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 the 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?


by Mary Oliver