WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Wednesday, October 13, 2021

ORDER

            Today, as usual, the present moment will give the orders. All I have to do is listen carefully and follow its instructions. I won’t have to busy my little ‘self’ to figure things out and give commands and directions, because the present moment will quietly do that for me. It will tell me how to sit at my desk, how to listen to the sounds of the furnace, how to tap the computer keys accurately, how to be present in a perfect kind of way. There will be order everywhere – in the position of the small hairs on my hands, in the way my coffee waits in the cup beside me, in the way sticky notes are situated on my desk. Tidiness will show me how to to live and love this day. There will be apple-pie order from breakfast to bedtime, if I can stay observant and see it. The world actually works in orderliness and symmetry, even though it sometimes seems in disarray. I just hope I can see through the mist of my own thoughts and recognize the discipline and peacefulness of the present moment, for it’s always there.

ORDERLINESS

He marvels 
at the orderliness of things. 
These days
the birds start singing
at exactly five-seventeen,
and the newspaper man
makes his stop at the house next door 
at six-o-six.
Stranger still, his breath
enters and leaves with precision,
his quiet heart
carries on its duties
in a dependable way,
and the stars stay
where they're supposed to stay.
It's astonishing
to consider this
as he eats his perfect
piece of toast
and dawn delivers
another ideal day 
at his doorstep.