Poets Among Us

[Restlessness - XIII]

We have poets among us. Some sit on our shelves. And some sit next to us at work, the coffee shop, or the Sunday potluck—and we wouldn’t know it unless we asked.

I asked.

My friend, Sophie, delivered a beautiful verse about restlessness. She didn’t intend it to be a poem, but it reads like one.

An invitation interrupts [my restlessness].

Pay attention.

[Mary Oliver asks in her poem , The Summer Day,] “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Her answer to that question is pay attention. To fall into the grass, be idle and blessed, and stroll through the fields. This sense of idleness grates against my unhealthy standards of productivity for myself [and others].

Yet it’s these unhealthy expectations that need interrupting. The practice of paying attention invites me to become aware without the expectation to fix it all immediately.

Pay attention—what expectations are making me feel scattered?
Pay attention—what am I trying to avoid?
Pay attention—what is my body telling me?
Pay attention—what is most important at this moment?

Pay attention. There is grace for me, if I don’t have the cultivated spirit of a poet…yet.

The invitation is still there for me, in this moment.