Of Course the Day is a Poem

Today I want to talk about un-ruffling our minds. Which is to say, I want to talk about my plan to unruffle myself. Remember when we used to read the poets who would say all intensely and passionately, how you live your day is how you live your life? And we used to talk about Mary Oliver’s wild and precious life? And I for one read and re-read John O’Donohue’s book on beauty, and thought and thought and dreamed about how poetry can change the world, and beauty can, and how calmness is a wonderful contagion and how all we need is love etc? And then all of that seemed frivolous for a while though at the same time we were all clinging to it and retreating into whatever small moments and slivers of beauty we could find / see in our fog or despair or anger and/or jadedness.

It’s O’Donohue who has reminded me of the importance of an unruffled mind:

“Over against the world with all its turbulence, distraction and worry, one should cultivate a style of mind that can reach through to an inner stillness and calm. The world cannot ruffle the dignity of a soul that dwells in its own tranquility. Gradually, this serenity will begin to pervade our seeing and change the way we look at things.”

–  John O'Donohue

And honestly, I think it was because I had cultivated the style of mind that was calm and clear before the pandemic that it took me quite far into it, in a fairly unruffled state even, and I’m thankful for that. Now, I feel it’s time for me to get back to that work more concertedly. I keep thinking about how those who recover from Covid-19 often go on to suffer from a loss of smell. And that doctors prescribe a treatment of olfactory therapy: “it works by having patients with anosmia sniff essential oils for a few minutes twice a day for a number of weeks. The smells most commonly used are: rose, lemon, cloves and eucalyptus.”

There are other aspects to the treatment, but this basking in or partaking of the aroma of essential oils seems to me to be not unlike re-learning to find the poetry in a day, again. The advice holds to spend a few minutes twice a day for a number of weeks reading poetry, looking for beauty, cultivating an inner calm.

Do you know the poem by Peter Balakian, “Here and Now” ? In it are the lines:

“When I tell you the day is a poem
I’m only talking to you and only the sky is listening.”

It’s also time for me to remember the lines by Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks):

“A voice that calms, movements that calm,
eyes that quiet – dreams that also do the
same, and enliven too... 
Be a precious donor of peace and hope.
Give love to all you meet,
for so many in this world are being torn
apart.”

And this:

Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand. 
– Henry Miller

And:

“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” 
– Leonard Bernstein

For quite a while now, I haven’t felt like the days are poems, and then suddenly, I did feel that of course the days are poems. I hope that feeling stays. Part of the way I got it to happen is by just repeating it even though at first I didn’t believe it. “The day is a poem.” “Every day is a poem.” Maybe the days listened; maybe I listened.

To end with, do you remember this poem by William Stafford? We are all still just people standing here, and how we stand is important. How are you going to listen for the next things to happen? How will you breathe?

Being a Person

by William Stafford

Be a person here. Stand by the river, invoke
the owls. Invoke winter, then spring.
Let any season that wants to come here make its own
call. After that sound goes away, wait.

A slow bubble rises through the earth
and begins to include sky, stars, all space,
even the outracing, expanding thought.
Come back and hear the little sound again.

Suddenly this dream you are having matches
everyone’s dream, and the result is the world.
If a different call came there wouldn’t be any
world, or you, or the river, or the owls calling.

How you stand here is important. How you
listen for the next things to happen. How you breathe.

July 13, 2021