Thanksgiving - Grateful For The Gift Of Writing - Three Recent Poems - shedding ashes, the secrets of each muse & never mine alone

As I itch on my bed, I have been writing and rewriting three recent poems that I wrote, revised or took to the next level of expression in the past month. This is my Thanksgiving gift with nothing bad about nothing and the true gratitude for my creative talents and the gift of this rare human birth. So here we go, and thank you for taking the time to read and comment if you are so moved or please ask me any questions that you might have. In any case, please enjoy... John

Three Poems by John Lavitt (November 24, 2011)

shedding ashes

she looks like a hot woman drinking,

she becomes a little girl weeping,

so young, still the shadows of a child,

lurching through vertigo, shedding ashes.

if you gaze gently into her eyes,

if you listen softly as she speaks,

a sudden smile, sweet and surprised,

emerges. there is a flower veiled,

beyond the shards of animal memory,

no exit possible, the fondle lurking,

cries muffled, her home a wicked altar,

so much innocence sacrificed so soon.

enough diagnosis to make you feel better;

didn’t you once boast of life preservers?

but what can i do? this is just in passing.

what medicine of earth and sky?

how many need a vision possible,

not visionary, no light show from heaven,

but a modest map of a future rendered

where each step taken leads.

if she beholds a path leading,

a vision of a woman possible,

her shattering less than a shadow,

a witness to the morning sun.

the secrets of each muse

who could paint such angry beauty?

not quite angry and definitely not bitter,

but exacting, dramatic and classical;

this woman sings of Europe before the fall.

Modigliani releases the flow of such softness,

his brush baring the aristocracy of beauty,

long and languorous, a sexual calm in color,

but blunting the elemental edges of this woman.

a strange mixture expressed in dichotomy;

a mix of a sunset stroll in the Mediterranean

with cigarette smoke rising in Bohemian shadows.

she cannot be captured without the chains.

the painter required, of course, Egon Schiele;

each stark line reveals her sexuality radiant,

battling against death, against cages respectable.

her truth exposed, the lovely flaws of a girl lost.

such beauty caught can never truly convey

three dimensions, the dark corners and closed drawers,

all she fears and all she loves: there are certain dreams,

the secrets of each muse the artist can never betray.

never mine alone

in the bright ambition of the waking hour,

there awakes a certain inclination, a need

to capture the world with the art of words.

this is immortality, my name carved in stone,

or just one more simulation of the snickering past;

so many have walked these cornerstones before,

each writer dancing in the whirl of unique discovery.

i believed in my significance. this is my comfort zone.

yes, i have written revolutionary poems before,

when i was younger, when i was young,

everything appeared to be the very first:

i was raising the curtain of the world!

repeated postures, the steps of an antiquated dance

where each poem sings of next year’s revolution.

but if i have never in truth been the original voice,

what is the point of scratching out these copies?

beyond today's survival, the breath of expression is sacred.

yes, this primal path not cut by the soles of my feet.

other footsteps trodden, fossilized imprints of the greats,

but each new step taken is a wondrous mystery.

the critics braying; thousands of greater poets past,

the bold first step long forgotten in ash and dust.

no, my friends, this graven path was never mine alone.

countless steps taken before, countless to come.

A Birthday Blog: How These Trials, All The Itching And All The Pain, Have Shown Me The Beauty And Wonder Of Being Alive

Right now, on November 14, 2011, on my 45th birthday, as I write this blog, my right thigh is itching out of control. I am exhausted as usual and the acid indigestion just won't go home, but all I can think and imagine is how beautiful and wonderful is this rare gift of a human birth. Yes, these clinical trials to ride me of Hepatitis C truly suck! My doctors have told me that my side effects are the worst they have seen in the clinical trials so far. But I continue to endure even as my body is under siege with the rash perambulating back and forth between a poison ivy-like itch and a bad sunburn-like pain and sandpaper tautness. But when you have been so reduced, when even a half hour of relief and comfort seems a blessing, there is nothing left to do but surrender all of your bullshit and all of your delusions. I am living and surviving at the core of my being, and what I find there is a true sense of value and beauty, wonder and gratitude. What I find there is a light.

At the core of John Lavitt, there is a beacon that shines beyond the darkness as I realize how lucky I am to be alive. I put myself through literal hell in the past, hurting the ones I love through the extreme indulgence of my drug addiction, through a car crash and brain damage that should have left me a shell of myself as a creative entity, and through the everyday selfishness generated by fear. At this very moment, however, as I write this and do my best to ignore the cramping in my lower back and the nausea rising that has nothing to do with Jean-Paul Sartre's classic, I know that I am sober and that I am a decent man and that I am loved. What more could a human being need to have to be happy?

On this birthday, I make the conscious choice to believe in the inherent goodness of human beings and to have faith that I will continue to be loved and taken care of by the universe. After all, I am a working part of the whole and a pretty damn good part of the divine machine if I say so myself. And I guess I am doing that right now. There is such beauty in being able to feel gratitude in the midst of these physical challenges. I know one day soon they will come to an end, and I am so grateful that I will be able to return to the everyday roller-coaster of just trying to get by and live my life.

I love the birthday picture below of Linda Carter as Wonder Woman, and I figure it makes sense these days to embrace the possibility of superheroes. Yes, I am often a flawed and petty little creature, but, despite all these defects of character, when challenged I actually seem to rise above the drowning tides by focusing on staying afloat with a smile. Can you imagine how much this physical affliction has taught me about what I truly value and what is meaningful to me? What a lovely wonder it is to be able to toss aside the crap because I do not have the strength to do anything other than hold tight to the beauty and the love.

Linda Carter: The Only Wonder Woman For Me!

It's funny because in my apartment I have a limited edition Wonder Woman snow globe in which her silver bracers are raised in battle to block the bullets of the bad guys. (Wow! How is that for a little aliteration? It always makes me smile when the poetry just pops out without any explanation.) Although I love the snow globe, I have planned since I first bought it  to give it as a symbol of my belief in and my respect of the woman who will be my partner in this life. Despite this rash and those scars, I truly have faith that I will one day be with this woman and that she will be with me. After all, isn't the ultimate gift in human life the ability to love?

On my birthday, this is my wish — to love and be loved. Maybe not tomorrow and maybe not next year, and there is no time line, but I take a deep breath and I go on waiting. I shall continue to wait and to experience my own authenticity and to do my best in the eye of the storm. Because I know that I must find the strength to continue waiting for a little while. If that is what is asked of me. If that is what is asked. Because I will never surrender my faith in the possibility of love. Yes, I have that faith and it consoles my soul as I stumble through this blizzard of side effects and become healthy again.

Day 90 Night - The American Rash Of Kim Kardashian's Wedding Break-Up And Trying My Best Not To Itch The Bullshit

As I do my best to survive day-to-day the side effects of this clinical trial for treatment of the Hepatitis C virus, I am amazed at how American popular culture reflects the itchiness of my rash. Is there anything more annoying than the endless drivel about Kim Kardashian and her wedding/break-up with basketball player Kris Humphries? Yes, Kim filed for divorce on Halloween after only 72 days of marriage and the biggest celebrity television wedding since the Royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.  It all feels like a sign of the apocalypse and almost makes me forget my own itchiness as I watch our society scratch this constant itch. It is almost a relief when the ugliness of our national media and obsessions with useless celebrity provides a consolation from my own suffering.

Such A Desperate Manipulation And Pathetic Grab At Fame & Notoriety 

I choose this topic because it is the only thing that seems right now to be as disgusting as my rash and as difficult to escape. Whether in the supermarket aisles or on every cable channel not focusing on the trial of Michael Jackson's mad doctor, we are plagued by this money-grubbing greed of this awful family. I mean, I know I am being a judgmental asshole, but this is how I truly feel and this is how I think most of us actually feel about this abuse of ethics and mental space and the institution of marriage and the sacred beauty of love. This family manages to reduce everything to ego and vanity, pissing on our popular culture and making me ever wonder why I even pay for cable television. It is just gross. Then again, when you think about it, it is kind of amazing that Kim Kardashian is able to reach a lower plateau than she did in the past with her sex tape with Ray J.

From a personal perspective, I feel abused by the family because it makes me take a deep look at Bruce Jenner in an utter violation of one of my childhood heroes. When Jenner won the Decathlon and the gold medal in the 1976 Montreal Olympics, I was nine years old and it was the first time I was aware of such an event. Jenner became one of my first sport's heroes because he won an event in which you had to everything well. Even the idea of it seemed incredibly intimidating to me, and I loved watching him win the final sprint that sealed his victory with his hands raised in the air and that big USA on his red running shirt. For the first time, I understood what it was to be an American, to be part of something greater like a citizen of a country, and I relish that moment. And it has been poisoned by the Kardashians.

Bruce Jenner Winning The Decathlon At The 1976 Olympics

Honestly, I could give a shit about Kim Kardashian and the rest of the family. I find the Lamar Odom marriage to her sister somewhat interesting, but really just another blip on the pop cultural radar. But Bruce Jenner's marriage to Kris Kardashian makes him part of the media landscape, and I am forced to experience what a plastic surgery wreck the man has become over the years. With his skin taut against his skull, it looks like he has had at least two or three face lifts with multiple botox injections and all the rest of the vanity bullshit. Rather than looking like a hero, the man resembles a living ghoul, a zombie-in-the-making who pollutes the very notion of his past victory. Yes, everyone should be allowed to age and looks fade and we all grow old, but what about a touch of grace and acceptance. No, with the Kardashians, such human qualities are not allowed as they reduce themselves to plastic dolls and cartoon-like monstrosities. And they actually expect the American public to love and appreciate them?

Why Do We Have To Have Such Vanity Thrust In Our Laps?

Okay, I know this blog is a bit extreme and maybe even unfair to that family, but I have little patience for such a popular culture rash when my own skin is red and splotchy and itches 24/7. It just makes me think that we should be so much more and simply decent and why are we focused on such crap when there are real problems and issues to face and confront. Then again, the Occupy Wall Street protestors are doing quite an incredible job at shaking things up and being part of the largest mass American protest movement since the Vietnam war or maybe the anti-Apartheid movement. But the corporate media doesn't want us to focus on those questions. Instead, they provides us with the modern day opium of the masses that is the Kardashian family. And it is just as heinous as any addiction and just as regrettable.

Yes, I know this to be true and yet still I watch and I complain and I itch...

Such television is a weapon of mass deception, and I will no longer allow it to occupy my mind. I am trying my best to keep the itching below the level of consciousness and ignore the reality of my rash so I do not needed any added bullshit in my life. Forgive the language, but fuck the Kardashians and their itchy infection of American popular culture. They do not have the power of opium. After all, I have been a heroin addict in the past and I know intimately the horror of that slavery, and I will not allow anything to take over and enslave my life again. I have tasted freedom beyond the opium, and I am no longer a faceless number of the masses. I embrace a certain authenticity, moving beyond the Kardashians and the itchiness of this rash, and accepting the reality of my responsibility to be good and decent and creative with the extraordinary gift of this rare human birth.

Yes, the same can be said of the Kardashians. We choose our own poisons.

Day 72 Night - After A Long Silence, A Certain Reckoning With The Weight Of Regret

It has been way too long since I wrote in this blog, almost a week, and I apologize for the long silence. I must admit that I have been going through a certain reckoning with the weight of regret. I know that regret is useless and self-destructive because it leads only to more regret and greater inaction. I cannot the alter the truth of my reality and I am powerless over the past and what I did to myself. But there is a certain reckoning in my soul with the burden of such failure and a sense that there is no magical redemption at hand. I am alone in the world, and I cannot pull a realized life like a rabbit out of my hat.

Is there a magic trick or even a toy that can provide instant redemption?

So is this the end of the line? No, I don't think so. In fact, I know it's not the end of anything. It could be the raw materials for a magnificent new beginning. It really is just a matter of perspective. And perspective is a choice so what am I going to choose today?

Without question, this ongoing treatment for Hepatitis C is a bitch. The aches and pains are constant, and I have to remember to have access to Ibuprofen at all times or they simply take over. At those times, I take a pill and lie on the couch until the rolling cramps pass. I have to use a prescription steroid cream on my rash that is so strong that I need to wear rubber gloves to put it on. I can barely eat anything without getting a bad case of indigestion, yet the food strangely shoots through my body as if it were a superhighway. How can you have indigestion when nothing seems to stay inside? Sometimes I fell okay when I go out for a walk, but I have to drench my exposed body in SPF 50 sunscreen because the drugs make my skin photosensitive. The word kind of sounds sexy and cool, but it's not. Just another burden preventing mobility. But it rarely even matters because the exhaustion overtakes me so quickly that I cannot stay out for long. Yes, I manage to cover it up and put on a brave face, but it is tough.

Is the Universe Laughing At Me?

So is the universe laughing at me? Am I doomed to the failure of the cavern in my apartment as I lie on the couch and wonder if anything is ever going to change? No, I don't think so. No, this is bullshit and self-pity and the morass of sinking into the indulgence of a destructive imagination. Beware the price when you turn imagination into a weapon against yourself. It is nothing less than deadly. And I will not use such a beautiful gift from my creator as a weapon against myself.

 The classic R&B pop song by Gloria Gaynor keeps echoing in my head —

First I was afraid
I was petrified...

But I grew strong
I learned how to carry on...

...you think I'd crumble

you think I'd lay down and die
Oh no, not I
I will survive
as long as i know how to love
I know I will stay alive
I've got all my life to live
I've got all my love to give
and I'll survive
I will survive

Yes, of course, I know Gloria was singing about love, but aren't all of our trials and tribulations about love essentially when it comes down to the brass tacks. 

My two main fears and arguable the two main fears of any of us are as follows:

1) I will not be loved because I am unlovable and not worthy of love.

2) I will not be taken care of by the universe and I can't take care of myself.

I don't believe that either of these fears have anything to do with reality unless I choose to let them infect my life and dominate my perception. Yes, we all experience difficult times and there are so many challenges to be faced, but if we just show up and do a moderate job at an adequate pace, without the pressure of doing our best, everything seems to turn out just fine. Today I choose to have faith in my life and in this universe and I will not give into those fears. Quietly itching here and there, I do not abandon my smile and I continue to move forward and be grateful for the gift of this rare human birth.

Day 18 Night — Clinical Trials First Step: A Very Cool Nurse And Element Girl

Okay, as with everything in this hyper-intensified process, I perambulated today between deep spirituality and freaked-out crisis like a pinball doing the dance of life and death. My first meeting at the medical office buildings across from Olympia Medical Center for the clinical trials took place, and it was an overall positive with hints of lurking negatives. What is essential is not to fall into the either/or perspective and to understand that I am not dancing between darkness and light, good and evil, or life and death, but lingering in a vast amorphous landscape of grey. The grey offers no easy choices beyond murky fears and no quick solutions, but at least it reflects a certain truth in terms of the nature of reality and human life. There are very few mythic battles and transcendent confrontations. There are mythic hearts and transcendent laughter, and they do battle with the grim truth of everyday reality like the rest of us. Mind you, I have not forgotten that there is beauty and wonder everywhere if you look with clear eyes and open hands.

The Dream of the Mythic Battle Against Monstrous Evil

When I went into the clinical trials, I met Chris Rice, the RN who is the clinical manager of the project. Later, I will go into more details about the clinical trials, but there will be plenty of time for that in the future. Besides being incredibly positive and user-friendly (sounds like a massage with a happy ending) on the phone, Chris presented the details of the trials with precision and understandable specifics. When I went into the office today and Chris took all my medical data and history, we got along incredibly well. Since we are both huge comic book fans, it was wonderful to hear about how he is sharing Neil Gaiman's brilliant Sandman with his 15-year old daughter.

Neil Gaiman's Sandman - Facade (Death of Element Girl)

I have no kids and I have tons of comic books and baseball cards, and I always thought I would pass them down. Maybe I'll have a child in the future - being a man, the ticking clock moves a bit slower - but if I don't, I can always share them with my nephews and my niece. When Chris described watching his daughter read some of my favorite stories from Sandman, I must admit I was deeply moved by vicariously experiencing something I once dreamed of doing myself. In particular, there is one issue called Facade about the despair of the super heroine Element Girl, an eternal metamorpho created by Ra, the ancient Egyptian God of the Sun. Element Girl can change into any element at will and she is incredibly powerful, but she longs for the release of death. Since she naturally changes into any element to adapt to any situation, she does not know how to kill herself and end her overwhelming sense of being an alienated freak. She is surprised when she is unexpectedly visited by Death, one of the Endless.

Death Visits With Element Girl In Her Moment Of Despair

Element Girl is told by Death that all she has to do is ask Ra to release her from life. But how, she asks, do I find him? She is told that Ra is a Sun God so all she has to do is look into the sun and ask nicely. She walks over to the window as the dawn approaches and the sun is rising, asking Ra to free her from the burden of her powers. In a stirring moment, Ra releases her from the eternal battle and she dissipates into dust with her ashy smile blowing away on the breath of the wind. It would be wonderful to watch my child experience such a beautiful story that meant so much to me. But I feel no regret right now; only happiness that I was able to empathize so deeply with a real-life experience and story told. There is more to tell about the doctor and the looming lesion in my kidney and a questionable high five, but that shall come later because there are more days and nights coming for me. I have no desire to have Ra free me from the blessing of this life, and I shall fight to hang on with your help.

Day 9 Night — Work Not A Burden, But A Relief

I thought there was a good chance that once I learned that I had to start treatment, I would view my work as a burden and a waste of valuable time. I mean, who the hell wants to write blogs about Tax Resolution and Human Resources when they are facing the most frightening health crisis of their life? In fact, the exact opposite has been the case. Work has become a relief and a connection to normality or as Warren G. Harding would have said, in this obscure historical reference to a President inventing a word, normalcy. By being normal, I am not threatened and I am in control of my life. Not hanging on, but holding on to the reins in a winter storm, hoping the horses know the way home.

I like the romance of the picture and the feel of the line above. If we want, we can transfigure our lives through story and metaphor and image, turning our lives into an expression of art. Yes, I want my life to be normal, but I can elevate the normal and see the beauty and wonder in the daily encounters with my community and this world. Why not use a crisis as motivation to transform life into art? In essence, I believe the reason that we have an awareness of our mortality is so we can become decent and good despite the knowledge of a coming end. I am here to get rid of my bullshit and my fear and my ego and become an expression of God on earth by realizing my authentic self. Whatever is divine has no expectations of us beyond the freedom of being comfortable in our skin and being ourselves. That, my friends, is more than enough and that is what I believe.

I do not need the normal to be a dream. I do not need to transform my everyday existence into the fantastic visions of Christopher Nolan's Inception. I enjoy the fantastic in my movies and my books, but I do not need to pretend that it will happen tomorrow. It is a miracle enough that the sun rises and I am given the grace of another day on this planet. Not in the sense of a fear of death of any looming mortality, but more along the lines of the rare gift of this human birth and this beautiful life. Do we really need super powers or to be mutants or so much more than what has been given to us? No, without question, there is more than enough potential and possibility in this world to satisfy any human soul.

Thank God for the gift of imagination and the access it provides to wonder and fantasy. But this is enough and it does not have to affect the laws of everyday reality, the basic rules of thermodynamics and  the theory of relativity and so forth. Quantum dreams and interstellar visions rock! But today, I choose to discover the beauty and the wonder that waits and breathes and looms in my true reality. Then again, we could dive into a discussion of possession and subjectivity, but it is late and this is a bit silly.

I don't know if I could survive this challenge without the blessing of laughter and the gift of being able to laugh at myself. Silly boy, you strut and postulate and still this world receives you with open arms.

Day 7 Night (Or Morning Day 8) — Letters And Love And Being A Samurai

Wow! Emptying out my storage unit and going through the papers and books that comprise the majority of my life has been nothing less than revelatory. Since I have lived abroad several times in Greece and Paris and Denmark, I went through hundreds of letters tonight, trying to decide which to keep and which to discard as I attempt to reduce the weight of my possessions. They were beautiful and moving and amazing, filled with love and friendship and intelligence and spirituality and the song of the journey. Yes, I have lost touch with so many people, but I think that is simply the nature of being human and a bit of a wandering Jew, but really, in truth, a wandering poet. So much appreciation for who I am and a realization f how often I lose touch of my authenticity while chasing external dreams and answers.

God, I love this picture... it speaks so clearly of a bridge that must be crossed and a path that must be taken if I am to realize that sense of authenticity and access myself through the lens of the Hepatitis C crucible. I will be a Samurai, maybe sometime a Samurai who complains and whines a little, but still a Samurai who shows up and allows any challenges and difficulties to come to bring out the best in me. The very idea of such an accomplishment is intoxicating in the best way possible.

I am not going to worry about whether I am going to fail or give in to the pain when it comes or sink into the couch and become a couchaholic with my head in my hands as I moan forth the whimpering of my poor fate. Excuse my language, but fuck that! After the Ultrasound this morning that took over 45 minutes and was strangely intimate for Saturday in the hospital at 7am, slathered in hot jelly and poked at with a machine as I held my breath, I spoke at an AA meaning. The response to what I had to express was nothing less than astonishing and beautiful. One woman was amazed that I was not at home moping about my Hepatitis C and worrying about the results of the Ultrasound. Although I opened by explaining what I am currently experiencing, the rest of my pitch was about sobriety and recovery and putting the principles of the program to work in my life today.

Sure, I have made many mistakes in the past and caused a lot of damage, but I am powerless over the past and there are no do-overs and I cannot do anything productive in the shadows of regret. Naturally, I am scared when it comes to the future and what is going to happen and how sick will the treatment make me and how painful will it be and will it even work given the percentages, but I am powerless over the future and I cannot be productive if I am chained to and dragged down by such fears.

No, I choose consciously to remain in the present and be positive and live in the loving embrace of faith. In the glories and te travels of my earlier days, I always kept in the present, focusing on writing the next poem and meeting new people and experiencing the adventure of the journey. Such an adventure is not only relegated to the boulevards of Paris or the rocky beaches of the Greek islands. Tonight and tomorrow, in Hollywood where I live and the streets of this city of lost angels, I shall be present and do mu best to be the man that my God put me here on this earth to be. I choose to open the window within and allow the divine wind to blow through me, the breath of God, setting aside my bullshit and this ego and the endless guises of this fear, and becoming an expression of my higher power by becoming myself.

As the sun rises this morning, I shall kneel down and greet the sunrise and say a prayer that asks for nothing, but simply expresses a profound sense of gratitude for the gift of this rare human birth. Thank you, my father in heaven and mother earth, for all you have given to your son. May I respect your gifts by being a decent and responsible man with a more than decent sense of humor to express and share with my community and your world.

That's my prayer today. Mind you, my mom told me that she likes the blog and the pictures, but she thinks I can be a little melodramatic and that I should shorten my sentences. I laughed and said with a smile over the cell phone that this is simply who I am and I honestly no longer know how to be anything else. These are the steps I choose to walk and I truly hope that you are all walking by my side.

Day 5 Afternoon — The Fast Begins (One Wild And Precious Life)

As the weekend begins at 5pm on Friday, I start a Fast for the next 15 hours or so to prepare for an Ultrasound of my abdominal region, focusing naturally on my liver, that will happen in Saturday morning. Yes, my appointment is at 7am in the basement at Kaiser Hospital when I guess they will brighten my belly with ultrasound jelly. It has grown in size in recent years to the point that demands reduction, but not quite yet verging on Couch Potato Hall of Fame induction criteria. Aside from a liver biopsy which is done with a humongous needle and the prospect of which utterly freaks me out, an ultrasound is the best method of finding out how my beleaguered organ is faring in the Hepatitis C siege. It feels a bit like a roll of the dice in Las Vegas with my belly being the craps table.

What I appreciate at this moment is the spiritual component of a fast. Like in the tradition of my tribe during Yom Kippur, I hope the fast allows me to shed in a metaphorical fashion some of the past sins that led me to this health crisis. Can I be forgiven for mistakes made under the influence of my disease of perception? When I look back at the last days of my addiction (was that a subliminal reference to the Gus Van Sant fictionalization of the death of Kurt Cobain), the insanity is mind-boggling to recall and becomes more and more so as the years pass. I cannot imagine what the hell I was thinking in the depths of my disease to create such havoc (I hate using the word create in such a disgusting context) and render such pain on my loved ones.

The many struggles I have encountered on the road of sobriety have slowly taught me to embrace and celebrate the gift of this rare human birth. Mind you, I do not really believe in reincarnation with an agnostic perspective at best. When it comes to such questions, I tend to side with Woody Allen: "I do not believe in an afterlife, but I am bringing a change of underwear just in case.

Nevertheless, the implications of the phrase "this rare human birth" are so powerful and moving because it emphasizes the true value of the gift of life. It reminds me of one of my favorite poems The Summer Day by the poet Mary Oliver, and I think I will exit by presenting you with the second half of the poem  below. If you have not read the works of this living giantess of American expression, then pick up her selected works as soon as you can. She is a voice of beauty and consolation, faith and revelation that expresses so clearly our sacred place in this world and the responsibility we have been given to protect the wonder of such a birthright. Here are the last nine lines of The Summer Day by Mary Oliver.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?