While my daughter is at ballet class, I walk. I drop her off at the studio and then head West, past the old warehouses, under the railroad bridge, through downtown, and to the park along the river. Before I get to the park, though, I always make a pass through Auntie’s Bookstore. It’s on the way, so it’s just a matter of walking through, not by. I pick an aisle, then a shelf, then a book. I open the book and read the page I land on. Then I put the book back and keep on walking, and thinking about what I’ve just read.
I love doing this. It’s fun. And I find treasure.
On my last Auntie’s long-cut, I stopped right in front of a book by one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver. I’d not read this particular collection, Felicity, so I was delighted. I opened the book, read one poem… and felt the “yes” soak into me like warm lavender dishwater into a sponge.
Mary Oliver has a way of stating things so simply and elegantly and rightly, without extra words or sentiment or fuss. And she does it in a way that makes you feel the ahhh of recognition and understanding, as if, yeah, actually, you’ve always thought that too. You just never said it as pretty.
I love this poem. I love the acceptance of it. The non-judgment of it. And the reminder of it.
Nothing is Too Small Not To Be Wondered About
The cricket doesn’t wonder
if there’s a heaven
or, if there is, if there’s room for him.
It’s fall. Romance is over. Still, he sings.
If he can, he enters a house
through the tiniest crack under the door.
Then the house grows colder.
He sings slower and slower.
Then, nothing.
This must mean something, I don’t know what.
But certainly it doesn’t mean
he hasn’t been an excellent cricket
all his life.
We are all souls on a journey. We are all made in and of love from the same Source. We are all different, with different lives and different vocabularies and different contexts and different beliefs and even different levels of exposure to different beliefs. It’s reassuring to remember that whomever we are — enlightened or not, cricket or not — is exactly, perfectly, excellent.