Time, a Succession

Time, a Succession

Hop clover has leapt
past its prime,
yellow crowns crisping brown,
but dog daisy still romps
faithful at my knees,
yarrow at my shins, and now
grass pinks grow in little
Barbie bouquets.

Chicory stretches high
silky petals made of sky.
Soon Queen Anne
will arrive in lace,
and milkweed open its fists,
greet her with palms
of butterfly wings.

I want to set my pulse
to this wave,
count my life
in colors,
my minutes
in flowers,
blooming,
receding, 
reseeding.

The Prompt

I wrote this poem several weeks ago. In the interim, Queen Anne’s lace has indeed arrived on the scene, and the oxeye daisies (also known as dog daisies) have mostly faded away. Pink coneflowers bob at the edges of my yard, undeterred by the unrelenting heat.

The world continues to be terrible and so beautiful all at once.

Right now, I need every tiny beautiful thing. I need to stay open to every speck of beauty, every moment of delight or love or connection or laughter. How else can I possibly stay open to the hurt, the suffering, the absurdity? And I want to be open—want to be here for all of it.

If you would like a prompt to play with today to help you shake loose a poem (or song! or journal entry! or painting!) of your own, then I invite you to find some small, beautiful thing in your surroundings. It could be a flower. It could be a patch of sunlight on your bedroom floor. It could be something others might not find beautiful—an ant, crawling up your kitchen wall. It could be a sound—a song or even, perhaps, a single musical note. It could be a taste, a smell, a feeling, a touch.

Find one small beautiful thing and pour your attention onto it. Take your time. Be present. Observe it in full sensory detail. What does it feel like to sense the beauty of this thing? To let beauty wash over and through you? How does your body respond? How does your mind respond? Does this tiny, beautiful thing have a message for you in this moment? Do you have a message for it?

If no poem emerges for you from this but you take a few minutes from the rush of your day to appreciate something lovely, then how marvelous! We need that, probably every day—probably every hour of every day. If you do find the seed of a poem in this experience, then give it a little water and see what grows. I hope you’ll share it here—I would be so delighted to read it!

I’m glad you’re here with me in all of the absurdity, beauty, and mess of this world! Stay safe out there, friends—I mean, within reason. And let’s each try to help someone else be and feel a little safer, too.

P.S. Since we’re on the subject of beautiful things . . . I don’t spend a whole lot of time on Notes, but when I do, I’m delighted over and over again by

Pam Houston

’s posts there. She posts a beautiful thing everyday (in addition to her beautiful newsletter). If you want to add something lovely to your feed, take a look and consider following her!