What Each Morning Brings

I almost missed it.  I nearly overlooked the cobalt and cloud blue ruffles of this tiny iris that seems to have bloomed overnight.  Three years ago, I gave Joe a garden gift for Father’s Day:  a mail order collection of iris bulbs in all shades of blue and purple.  Eleven  came up that year, all  but one.  The next year only three or four dusky green blades pushed through.  Last year, none.  So I wasn’t expecting to find this lovely offering.  I am grateful to notice what this morning brought to light.  Richard Wilbur’s poem adds to my note to self:  notice what each morning brings!

In the strict sense, of course,
We invent nothing, merely bearing witness
To what each morning brings again to light:
Gold crosses, cornices, astonishment
Of panes, the turbine-vent which natural law
Spins on the grill-end of the diner’s roof,
Then grass and grackles or, at the end of town
In sheen-swept pastureland, the horse’s neck
Clothed with its usual thunder, and the stones
Beginning now to tug their shadows in
And track the air with glitter. All these things
Are there before us; there before we look
Or fail to look; there to be seen or not.
~ from Lying, by Richard Wilbur

Candlelight

Gathering around light is common.  We circle a campfire, draw close to our fireplaces, light candles at special dinners and ceremonies.  At times we are drawn by a need for warmth, or to increase our ability to see, but often we focus on a candle’s flame seeking  illumination beyond seeing…  for inner glow.  It is then  we become not so much like a  candle fly, inching closer in puzzling confusion and risking injury as  like a firefly,  able to fly in the dark and to show  light.