She is Mary Oliver.  Many words have been written about her, but not today by me.  The most precious words are those that flowed from her hand and heart.

Here is one of Mary’s gems:

What Is the Greatest Gift?

What is the greatest gift?
Could it be the world itself – the oceans, the meadowlark
The patience of the trees in the wind?
Could it be love, with its sweet clamor of passion?

Something else – something else entirely
holds me in thrall
That you have a life that I wonder about
more than I wonder about my own
That you have a life – courteous, intelligent – that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own
That you have a soul – your own, no one else’s
That I wonder about more than I wonder about my own
So that I find my soul clapping its hands for yours
More than my own

***

May our eyes do what they’re designed to do

Gaze outwards, into the big wide world

And find the beauties there