Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light. It was what I was b… - Mary Oliver

Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for–
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world

(from, 'Mindful')

What's magical, sometimes, has deeper roots
than reason.

Sometimes I dream
that everything in the world is here, in my room,
in a great closet, named and orderly,

and I am here too, in front of it,
hardly able to see for the flash and the brightness — and sometimes I am that madcap person clapping my hands and singing;
and sometimes I am that quiet person down on my knees.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.