I wanted to share a favorite poem by the late and great Mary Oliver that I have been reciting in my head on repeat for the past few weeks. Patience is something I strive for, fail at, dream about, and occasionally achieve. This poem resonates on so many levels, and I am continually drawn to it in the late summer and early autumn. The world seems to speed up with back to school, sporting events, and the hustle towards holiday season. However, all we really need to do is slow is down, look around, and notice each moment “hardly move from one eternity to another.” Let us all try to savor these last few days of summer. Autumn will come, whether we are patient or not.

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Patience

By: Mary Oliver

What is the good life now? Why,
look here, consider
the moon’s white crescent

rounding, slowly, over the half month to still another
perfect circle —

the shining eye
that lightens the hills,
that lays down the shadows

of the branches of the trees,
the summons the flowers
to open their sleepy faces and look up

into the heavens.
I used to hurry everywhere,
and leaped over the running creaks.

There wasn’t
time enough for all the wonderful things
I could think of to do

in a single day.  Patience
comes to the bones
before it takes root in the heart

as another good idea.
I say this
as I stand in the woods

and study the patterns
of the moon shadows,
or stroll down into the waters

that now, late summer, have also
caught the fever, and hardly move
from one eternity to another.

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Peace, Love, and Namaste,

Kristin (& Cora and Luna)