evidence

With a mind, you can find evidence for anything. Sometimes, we find what we are looking for by thinking of it. Our evidence is in our minds.

Nature isn't like this. Nature shows its evidence. Natures blooms and blossoms and sprouts and shoots out. Nature's spirit needs no thought. It has no mind. It thinks of no evidence. It is its own. I love that. How natural, how perfect, how real.


The singular and cheerful life
of any flower
in anyone's garden
or any still unowned field

if there are any---
catches me
by the heart,
by its color,

by its obedience
to the holiest of laws;
be alive
until you are not.

Ragweed,
pale violet bull thistle,
morning glories curling
through the field corn;

and those princes of everything green---
the grasses
of which there are truly
an uncountable company,

each
on its singular stem
striving
to rise and ripen.

What, in the earth world,
is there not to be amazed by
and to be steadied by
and to cherish?

Oh, my dear heart,
my own dear heart,
full of hesitations,
questions, choice of directions,

look at the world.
Behold the morning glory,
the meanest flower, the ragweed, the thistle.
Look at the grass.
*Mary Oliver

Back in Asheville, after a trip to New Orleans, I am steadied and grounded again by the trees in blossom, the succulence wateriness, the wind's influence on my face and body as I sit on my porch admiring the lilies in bloom across the street, lilac, rose, purple.