early morning painting and Mindful by Mary Oliver

This particular Mary Oliver poem delights me every time I read it. It makes me think about we, as artists/creators of the beautiful, do each day.  Isn't that out job?...to find something where someone else, less tuned, less mindful passes by. We take that one moment and let it shine.

Mindful


Every day
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 this 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?

Tomorrow, you may look forward to Deborah Paris, part 3 interview. She loves Mary Oliver's poetry as well. Who doesn't?