Circles

This morning we woke up early, babies ready to eat. The sky was bright and blue after last night's thunderstorms. The herons have been fishing in the pond and the cardinals have been resting in the fig tree out the kitchen window. Grandpa came through his surgery yesterday well and with good news. And this is the poem I found during my morning reading. Life can be hard at times, but there is so much to be thankful for. And we do, give thanks.

Circles by Mary Oliver

In the morning the blue heron is busy
stepping, slowly, around the edge of the
pond. He is tall and shining. His wings, folded
against his body, fit so neatly they
make of him, when he lifts his shoulders and begins to rise
into the air, a great surprise. Also
he carries so lightly the terrible sword-beak. Then
he is gone over the trees.

I am so happy to be alive in this world
I would like to live forever, but I am
content not to. Seeing what I have seen
has filled me; believing what I believe
has filled me.

The first words of this page are
hardly thought of when the bird
circles back over the trees; it floats down
like an armful of blue flowers, a bundle of light
coming to refresh itself again in the black water, and I think:
maybe it is or it isn't the same bird--maybe it's
the first one's child, or the child of its child.
What I mean is, our deliverance from Time
and the continuance, if we only steward them well,
of earthly things. So maybe it's myself still standing here, or
someone else, like myself hot with the joy of this world, and
filled with praise.