From the poet Mary Oliver, this beautiful prose (that still somehow feels like poetry) from her most recent book, Upstream.
“It is six a.m., and I am working. I am absentminded, reckless, headless of social obligations, etc. It is as it must be. The tire goes flat, the tooth falls out, there will be hundreds of meals without mustard. The poem gets written. I have wrestled with the3 angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt. My responsibility is not to the ordinary, or the timely. It does not include mustard, or teeth. It does not extend to the lost button, or the beans in the pot. My loyalty is to the inner vision, whenever and however it may arrive. If I have a meeting with you at three o’clock, rejoice if I am late. Rejoice even more if I do not arrive at all.”
Of course, the first thing that occurs to the cynic in me (we won’t discuss how much of me that is) is that Oliver has no clients or judges to deal with, at least not on that day. But there goes my cynicism pitching a bucket of water on this bit of enlightenment. Perhaps I have to put off my “loyalty to the inner vision, whenever and however it may arrive,” until later. Still, I can at least acknowledge its arrival and place it in a comfortable spot until I can get spend more time with it.
It occurs to me... 