Canopy of Change

Sometimes I forget how easily the sight of a bird in flight, in flit, in air fills me with contentment. 

In the same way that soaring along a ravine path under the canopy of the newly-adorned trees fills me with a certain type of ecstasy: wind rushing through my hair, against my ears, into my face, with the sweet soundtrack of serendipity that is nature.

Or the whimsical pleasure of having random grandmothers - throughout the day, and quite independent of one another - strike up conversations:

"We ought to get a discount for this, don't you think?" says the white-haired little woman, as we disembarked off a bus that stopped 15 feet from the actual stop, making us walk further to the intersection.

"What soup is that?" enquired a smiley lola, "... oh, I've never had lentil and kale soup in my life!" 

"yes darlin', is the weather of romance I tell ya," winked a Jamaican momma, upon catching me smiling as I walked home, swinging my bag.

Maybe it's the season: Spring has always filled me with a burgeoning sense of joy. The beckoning of warmth, the tendrils of hope, the aroma of a beautiful tomorrow tantalizing our senses from around the corner. 

Maybe it's more. I've always pondered about my relationship with change. I've written about it often enough...and sometimes I wonder whether it's a love-hate relationship. The idea of new things, new ideas, new possibilities, new opportunities fills me with a sense of being. It's hard to describe. Sometimes I just put it down to my innate sense of curiosity and irreverent urge of pushing boundaries.

Maybe its - well, that's for another post. Before the next thunderstorm drops, I've to don my running shoes and hit the ground running for another dose of ecstasy.

Serendipity

Sometimes you find a $20 bill in the pocket of an old coat.

If you were broke or hungry, it feels like a miracle. It can feel like a miracle just simply by the mere serendipity of finding it when you didn't expect to. Maybe all this time you've missed it, or maybe all this time you didn't really know it was gone or what you'd lost.

It was always with you—until that moment you've found it again.

Whether you decide keep it forever as a memento or decide to spend it, you've already lost it.

Poem of the Day: Longfellow - Endymion

Endymion
(Ballads and Other Poems 1842)


The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,
   Lie on the landscape green,
   With shadows brown between.

And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams
   Had dropt her silver bow
   Upon the meadows low.

On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
   When, sleeping in the grove,
   He dreamed not of her love.

Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
   Nor voice, nor sound betrays
   Its deep, impassioned gaze.

It comes,--the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,--
   In silence and alone
   To seek the elected one.

It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep,
   And kisses the closed eyes
   Of him who slumbering lies.

O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies
   Are fraught with fear and pain,
   Ye shall be loved again!

No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
   But some heart, though unknown,
   Responds unto his own.

Responds,--as if with unseen wings,
An angel touched its quivering strings;
   And whispers, in its song,
   "Where hast thou stayed so long?"