To Begin With, the Sweet Grass - Mary Oliver

The following poem was given to me by a dear friend while I was in Chad almost 3 years ago. Today I find myself writing it out again to give to another friend, one who is also a world traveler off on an adventure to discover herself. I find myself blessed to be friends with such amazing women, to have as friends and mentors, to be learning together what it means to love ourselves, and to love the world in which we find ourselves. 

I had the pleasure of talking to my parents this afternoon, its been about two weeks since I got to talk to them and over a month since we had the time to be open and honest and real, just the three of us. I found myself crying because of the journey I am on, a journey of self discovery that has brought me here to Rochester with MVS, but also a journey that they have been witnesses to my whole life. I am blessed to have such supportive, caring, and inspirational parents - even (and especially sometimes) if they are a world away fulfilling their own questioning and discovering and service adventures. (My parents - Doug and Naomi Enns - are MCC country reps in Syria/Lebenon currently living in Beirut). 

Speaking to my parents about journeys of self discovery and writing out "To Begin With, the Sweet Grass" for a friend leaving in two weeks for Croatia have reminded me today that my tree of life will grow at its own pace, in its own way. That though my life "trajectory" may not be clear, I am called to live life - to love and be loved - and to eat the sweet grass and admire the hummingbirds, especially here in Rochester.  

1.

Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat
of the sweet grass?
Will the owl bite off its own wings?
Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air or
forget to sing?
Will the rivers run upstream?

Behold, I say - behold
the reliability and the finery and the teachings
of this gritty earth gift.

2.

Eat bread and understand comfort.
Drink water, and understand delight.
Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets
are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds
who are drinking the sweetness, who are
thrillingly gluttonous.

For one thing leads to another.
Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.

And someone's face, whom you love, will be as a star
both intimate and ultimate,
and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.
And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
beautiful bodies of your lungs….

4.

Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,

The dancer, the potter,

To make me a begging bowl

Which I believe

My soul needs.

And if I come to you,

To the door of your comfortable house

With unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails,

Will you put something into it?

I would like to take this chance.

I would like to give you this chance.

5.

We do one thing or another; we stay the same, or we change.

Congratulations, if

You have changed.

6.

Let me ask you this.

Do you also think that beauty exists for some fabulous reason?

And if you have not been enchanted by this adventure-

Your life-

What would do for you?

7.

What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements,
through with difficulty.
I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.
I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.
They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment
somehow or another).
And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself.  Then forget it.  Then, love the world.