My world just brightened as the sun pried its way through fog and smoke. We’re still warned to stay inside, and yet, there is a lift and lilt to the air this moment, where I am.
This morning, I’m counseled by this poem shared today on Writer’s Almanac.
I delight in knowing that earthworms have taste buds “all over the delicate pink strings of their bodies”, and then, I come to the last line, ah, yes.
Feeding the Worms
by Danusha Laméris
Ever since I found out that earthworms have taste buds
all over the delicate pink strings of their bodies,
I pause dropping apple peels into the compost bin, imagine
the dark, writhing ecstasy, the sweetness of apples
permeating their pores. I offer beets and parsley,
avocado, and melon, the feathery tops of carrots.
I’d always thought theirs a menial life, eyeless and hidden,
almost vulgar—though now, it seems, they bear a pleasure
so sublime, so decadent, I want to contribute however I can,
forgetting, a moment, my place on the menu.
“Feeding the Worms” from Bonfire Opera by Danusha Laméris, © 2020.
Reading books is my guiding light these days, balanced with dips into the news. This piece on NPR is sobering on how once again we’ve been duped.
To counteract that, I suggest reading Gerald Durrell’s wonderful books The Corfu Trilogy: My Family and Other Animals. There’s some wonderful home-schooling advice, though most of it is conducted outdoors which is still iffy here these days.
In reading Niall Williams book, This Is Happiness, I set intention to become more of a “self-appointed Judge of Existence”. From the book:
“On the bicycles Christy and I came up where Patsy Phelan in his three-piece suit sat on a small carpet on his front wall. Patsy enjoyed the privilege of stillness, most days did absolutely nothing but breathe and look and hear and smell the world turning. A self-appointed Judge of Existence, at noon he went in for his dinner, then came out again for the second sitting.”
I set intention to enjoy the privilege of stillness, reception, and sitting with the play of Light.
