Living Deeply

Coming to God: First Days (Mary Oliver)

Lord, what shall I do that I
can't quiet myself?
Here is the bread, and
here is the cup, 
I can't quiet myself.
To enter the language of transformation!
To learn the importance of stillness,
with one's hands folded!
When will my eyes of rejoicing turn peaceful?
When will my joyful feet grow still?
When will my heart stop it's prancing
as over the summer grass?
Lord, I would run for you, loving the miles for your sake.
I would climb the highest tree
to be that much closer.
Lord, I will also learn to kneel down
into the world of the invisible,
the inscrutable and the everlasting.
Then I will move no more than the leaves of a tree
on a day of no wind,
bathed in light,
like the wanderer who has come at last,
and kneels in peace, done with all unnecessary things:
even motion, even words.

Go Down Death

We Can Do Better (TS Eliot)

And the wind shall say: "Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls."