“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
W. B. Yeats
I woke with the sun and stumbled to the window unwrapping the day like a gift as I parted the curtains and gasped at the view. The Irish Sea sprawled before me in layers of blue with cliffs and clouds and the sound of seagulls. I snapped this shot with my iPhone to capture the light. Every day should begin with awe and awareness. Every day should feel like a poem with fragments of beauty and color and magic.
April is National Poetry Month in America. It’s also my birthday month. Each spring my senses are awakened to the magic that Yeats wrote about in his poetry. No wonder the small island in the north Atlantic birthed so many poets. Ireland is currently bursting with life. Yellow daffodils are dancing in the rain. Newborn lambs are jumping on their mother’s backs. As I sat in a Dublin seafood restaurant, I noticed the bottle of water had the Yeats quote above typed on its label. I also noticed an oyster shell placed beside a yellow rose in a short vase. And then a motorcade pulled up outside on the street where the president of Ireland, a poet himself, emerged from a vehicle and continued into an art exhibit. Poetry surrounded me in every capacity. But only because I noticed what there was to be noticed.
Earlier last week, as a geology guide led my group down the hill to see the ancient hexagonal stones at the Giant’s Causeway, I asked her what was the name of the bird singing on the hillside. She answered, “I don’t hear anything.” We all know what we know. We see what we see. We hear what we hear. But the world is waiting for our senses to grow sharper. She could not hear the bird that I could clearly hear. Her sense of sight was stronger than her sense of sound.
Just imagine how much magic you are missing on a daily basis because you aren’t in tune with the poetry of life. Begin now with spring, the season of renewal, to sharpen your senses and become more aware. The colors, the light, the soundscapes, the textures, the tastes, the fragrance of life itself. When you move like a poet in the world, everything brings you to a state of awe and wonder.
Commentaires