it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.

it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.

...Sometimes I dream that everything in the world is here, in my room, in a great closet, named and orderly, and I am here too, in front of it, hardly able to see for the flash and the brightness- and sometimes I am that madcap person clapping my hands and singing; and sometimes I am that quiet person down on my knees.

So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world. And live your life.

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.

Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.

Like Magellan, let us find our islands To die in, far from home, from anywhere Familiar. Let us risk the wildest places, Lest we go down in comfort, and despair.