The Lily

Night after night
darkness
enters the face
of the lily

which, lightly,
closes its five walls
around itself,
and its purse

of honey,
and its fragrance,
and is content
to stand there

in the garden,
not quite sleeping,
and, maybe,
saying in lily language

some small words
we can’t hear
even when there is no wind
anywhere,

its lips
are so secret,
its tongue
is so hidden –

or, maybe,
it says nothing at all
but just stands there
with the patience

of vegetables
and saints
until the whole earth has turned around
and the silver moon

becomes the golden sun –
as the lily absolutely knew it would,
which is itself, isn’t it,
the perfect prayer?

~ Mary Oliver ~

The guru was asked, "What is enlightenment?" 
Ramakrishna replied, "You are asking this as a drop of water asks the ocean, "Who am I?" 
The ocean says, "Come closer, jump in." 
The droplet of water jumps in and the ocean asks, "Now what are you?" 
The water replies, "I am That. I am You, and yet I am exactly the same as before."

from Book of Hours II, 16 by Rainier Maria Rilke

How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.

 

Each thing -
each stone, blossom, child -
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.

 

If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

 

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

 

So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God's heart;
they have never left him.

 

This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.

 

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~