This weekend, Spark and Spitfire introduces a new regular weekend post called AGLOW, which will feature a poem that has had meaning for me — and perhaps for you, too. Peace to all.
A GIFT by Denise Levertov
Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands,
songbird eggs that can still hatch
if you keep them warm,
butterflies opening and closing themselves
in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
their scintillant fur, their dust.
You are given the questions of others
as if they were answers
to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
this gift is your answer.
SOURCE: Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems,
edited by Phyllis Cole-Dai & Ruby R. Wilson, page 69
PHOTOS: Dying butterfly found on noon walk with Adrienne, September 21
Spider web, morning walk, September 3
I had created the scheduled this post BEFORE my noon walk with Adrienne yesterday. It was sheer coincidence that we came across this dying butterfly in the middle of a sidewalk. Remembering the lines from this poem that mention a butterfly, I stopped, Adrienne picked up the butterfly, I took the photo and then she left it in a nearby bed of flowers.