“Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?” — Mary Oliver

It’s always the poets and the artists who draw our attention away from the straight and narrow path. And if we ever need a poem to call us out and force us to reassess what we’re focused on, reading Mary Oliver’s Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches in the quiet time before the world awakens to demand we fall in line will do the trick. We listen at our peril, for to do so is to shatter the illusion that this life we’ve wrapped around ourselves in this protective shell is enough.

How long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters, caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!

What are we doing with our time? Have we noticed, even as we’ve entered the height of summer, that the days are growing shorter? We must venture to the tingly work now. What is bold and a little scary? What are we truly working on but clever excuses and perfectly reasonable reasons for not leaping? Do we really believe the audacious life will sit in the corner awaiting our approval?

What do we see? What do we seek? Go to it. For our time grows ever shorter. May this day leave us breathless with wonder at what we’ve done with the time.