Lingering in Happiness

There's this thing I do, a thing that I've been doing for years but have neglected the past year or so.

When I read a book, I use Post-its to mark passages I particularly love, and then later, I type up the passage and make it a part of my gigantic quote document that is about 700 pages long now (no kidding). I mark a lot of pages particularly when I read poetry, because the language tends to be so beautiful that I want to remember it forever.

I do the same with whole poems. If I come across a poem I absolutely love, I mark it and then type it up later on. I have a huge collection of poetry on my hard drive, which I'm sure violates some copyright laws or something.

This week I started typing up poetry and quotes again. It's very soothing to me to be able to trace over the places where such creative minds have been.

Here is the poem I typed up today.


Lingering in Happiness

After rain after many days without rain,
it stays cool, private and cleansed, under the trees,
and the dampness there, married now to gravity,
falls branch to branch, leaf to leaf, down to the ground

where it will disappear--but not, of course, vanish
except to our eyes. The roots of the oaks will have their share,
and the white threads of the grasses, and the cushion of moss;
a few drops, round as pearls, will enter the mole's tunnel;

and soon so many small stones, buried for a thousand years,
will feel themselves being touched.

-Mary Oliver


Beautiful, yes? This poem makes me wish for rain. And I particularly love the final image of the stones.