Wednesday, November 10, 2010

A capacity for appreciation

The more we practice meditation, the more we are wonderfully capable of this kind of awareness:

The Orange

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange--
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave--
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It's new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I'm glad I exist.

-- Wendy Cope

2 comments:

  1. I love Wendy Cope. She's normally a lot more cynical than this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I do like the fact that her first poetry collection was called "Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis", and the title poem was the very last in the book and is very short and said just this:

    Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis

    It was a dream I had last week
    And some kind of record seemed vital.
    I knew it wouldn't be much of a poem,
    But I loved the title.



    Anyway, all that is by the by when it comes to the point, which is that I find prayer makes it easier to take joy in very simple, of-the-moment stuff, so I can well believe meditation is the same.

    ReplyDelete

New policy: Anonymous posts must be signed or they will be deleted. Pick a name, any name (it could be Paperclip or Doorknob), but identify yourself in some way. Thank you.