Why I Wake Early

“The Old Poets Of ChinaWherever I am, the world comes after me.It offers me its busyness. It does not believethat I do not want it. Now I understandwhy the old poets of China went so far and highinto the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.”

“DAISIESIt is possible, I suppose that sometimewe will learn everythingthere is to learn: what the world is, for example,and what it means. I think this as I am crossingfrom one field to another, in summer, and themockingbird is mocking me, as one who eitherknows enough already or knows enough to beperfectly content not knowing. Song being bornof quest he knows this: he must turn silentwere he suddenly assaulted with answers. Insteadoh hear his wild, caustic, tender warbling ceaselesslyunanswered. At my feet the white-petalled daisies displaythe small suns of their center piece, their -- if you don'tmind my saying so -- their hearts. Of courseI could be wrong, perhaps their hearts are pale andnarrow and hidden in the roots. What do I know?But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given,to see what is plain; what the sun lights up willingly;for example -- I think thisas I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch --the suitability of the field for the daisies, and thedaisies for the field.”

“Though I play at the edges of knowing, truly I know our part is not knowing, but looking, and touching, and loving”

“When it's over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement.”

“Why I Wake Early Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who make the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories, and into the windows of, even, the miserable and the crotchety— best preacher that ever was, dear star, that just happens to be where you are in the universe to keep us from ever-darkness, to ease us with warm touching, to hold us in the great hands of light— good morning, good morning, good morning. Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”

“Impossible to believe we need so muchas the world wants us to buy.I have more clothes, lamps, dishes, paper clipsthan I could possibly use before I die. Oh, I would like to live in an empty house,with vines for walls, and a carpet of grass.No planks, no plastic, no fiberglass. And I suppose sometime I will.Old and cold I will lie apartfrom all this buying and selling, with onlythe beautiful earth in my heart.”

“Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!      What a task          to ask of anything, or anyone, yet it is ours,     and not by the century or the year, but by the hours. One”

“Oh, to love what is lovely and will not last!What a taskto askof anything, or anyone,yet it is ours,and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.”

“Oh, I would like to live in an empty house, with vines for walls, and a carpet of grass. No planks, no plastic, no fiberglass.”

“How blue is the sea, how blue is the sky,how blue and tiny and redeemable everything is, even you,even your eyes, even your imagination.”

“How blue is the sea, how blue is the sky, how blue and tiny and redeemable everything is, even you, even your eyes, even your imagination. The Soul at Last The Lord’s terrifying kindness has come to me. It was only a small silvery thing—say a piece of silver cloth, or a thousand spider webs woven together, or a small handful of aspen leaves, with their silver backs shimmering. And”

“Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.”

“But his big, round music, after all, is too breathy to last.”

“I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop timewhen something wonderfulhas touched us...”

“Our hands, or minds, our feet hold more intelligence. With this I have no quarrel.But, what about virtue?”

“All things are inventions of holiness. Some more rascally than others. I”

“Let the fire nowput on its red hatand sing to us.”

“But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given,    to see what is plain; what the sunlights up willingly; for example—I think this    as I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch—the suitability of the field for the daisies, and the    daisies for the field.”

“Doesn’t the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?”

“Then I remember: death comes before the rolling away of the stone.”

“Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it. Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far and high into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.”

“How everything shines in the morning light!”

“a momentous and    beautiful silence as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too    hurried to hear it.”

“Impossible to believe we need so muchas the world wants us to buy.I have more clothes, lamps, dishes, paper clipsthan I could possibly use before I die.”

“Don’t call this world an explanation, or even an education.”

“Wherever I am, the world comes after me.It offers me its busyness. It does not believethat I do not want it. Now I understandwhy the old poets of China went so far and highinto the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.”

“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.”

“Fifteen minutes of music with nothing playing.”

“Wherever I am, the world comes after me.It offers me its busyness. It does not believethat I do not want it.”

“What you have never noticed about the toad, probably ... his front feet, which are sometimes padded, hold three nimble digits - had anyone a piano small enough I think the toad could learn to play something, a little Mozart maybe”