| SimpleGal |
Posted
on 10-Apr-03 04:11 PM
Musings I thought to share with you all:
As I looked up from my bed this morning, I saw the sunlight peering in through the white blinds. Amused, I stared at the shafts of light that created an amorphous image on my door. I walked to the window and pulled them up to let the sun pour into my room. Winter was long--cold and cruel at times. Mostly, it was dark and dreary. And of course, there were the snow storms that painted the landscape shades of bright and dull white. But after the snow melted, the dark and dreary patches of dry, dead grass and the cold black concrete of the road gaped from underneath.
I sat on my desk facing the window, looking out at the bare branches of trees that now reveal the houses they once concealed. A van pulled into the driveway of the house that stands naked outside my window. A man with a bag of grocery stepped out. He looked old. Vestiges of loneliness were visible in his demeanor. He shut the door to his vehicle and set the bag on the roof of his van. And stood still. His right arm he placed on his waist, leaned his body onto the van and looked decidedly into the sunlight as it splashed on his face like tiny waves lapping on riverbanks. He took what seemed to be a deep, all-enveloping breath, and smiled into the sunlight. As if welcoming this new and much awaited visitor into the deafening stillness of his quaint small town life. He jerked his body off the van, picked up the bag from the roof, and marched happily into his house, his keys jingling in the palm of his hand.
I returned to my bed and revisited Wordsworths Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey :
And this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.
I felt becalmed.
Amidst all the turmoil that we face today, globally and locally, and "through all the years of this our life" there is hope and possibility to lead one "from joy to joy." Despite the concrete hidden beneath the blanket of snow, the smile of joy from nature's healing ways helps us all recuperate---and move along:
[ And Learn]
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.
In peace.
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