February 24: All Work and No Play, Mary Oliver, "White-Eyes"

The day is beginning to darken.  It's about 6 p.m., and the wind and snow have been screaming outside all day long.  This weekend's weather has piled white again my kitchen windows.  One more storm like this, and they will be completely buried.  If I were a less stable, grounded person, I would be sitting in my kitchen "office" typing "All work and no play make Marty a dull boy" over and over and over.

In the midst of blizzards, it's difficult to appreciate their fierce beauty.  It's like the world is reminding us who really is in charge.  I must remind myself tonight that this snow is a gift.  A really heavy, wet, impossible gift.

Saint Marty is not snow complaining this evening.  He's snow meditating, like Mary Oliver . . .

White-Eyes

by:  Mary Oliver

In winter
     all the singing is in
          the tops of the trees
               where the wind-bird

with its white eyes
     shoves and pushes
          among the branches.
               Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,
     but he's restless--
          he has an idea,
               and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings
     as long as he stays awake.
          But his big, round music, after all,
               is too breathy to last.

So it's over.
     In the pine-crown
          he makes his nest,
               he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird.
     I only imagine his glittering beak
          tucked in a white wing
               while the clouds--

which he has summoned
     from the north--
          which he has taught
               to be mild, and silent--

thicken and begin to fall
     into the world below
          like stars, or the feathers
               of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,
     that is asleep now, and silent--
          that has turned itself
               into snow.