'My work is loving the world'

3 poems for when the world feels heavy

Photo by Bonnie Kittle on Unsplash

Somedays, everything is glorious and breezy. Especially in July. The flowers in their pots, the dogs on their trot, the tug of longer days and late sunsets, everything coalescing around a summer feeling that each moment is awash in endless possibility.

And other times, it’s all too much. The screeching, unyielding punditry, the digital hellscape that shrouds the news of the day in tribal rage and panic, every outlet obscuring facts with emotion, every last ounce of nuance drubbed out of the discourse. It takes a toll; it’s an assault on our nervous systems.

Generally, I’m an optimist. I detest doomerism—the reflexive assumption that the worst possible outcome is predetermined. And the de rigueur, collective instinct to react with a frenzied, catastrophic interpretation of every current event drives me half-mad.

Still, even with my inner navigation calibrated towards hope, I’m human. And on those days when it’s all too heavy to bear, there are a few poems I turn to that lighten the load and remind me to pause, look inward, and remember that despite the inevitable suffering and heartache, it is a miracle to be alive, here, on Earth, experiencing the universe.

Here are three of those poems. Maybe you will find some lightness in them too.

Messenger by Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Yes by William Stafford

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could, you know. That’s why we wake
and look out – no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.

What about you—what poems, books, music, quotes, comfort shows etc. do you turn to when the world’s getting you down?

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