🍿 Poetry Snack: “Worthy”

For the ones who can’t stop doing

Happy Friday to you all! Remember this treasure?

If that link does not provide enough poetry for you (for those who didn’t click, it leads to Rebecca Black’s sensational song “Friday”, which contains such lyrical gems as “Tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday comes afterwards”), read on. Equally good poetry follows.

This one’s for my fellow “doers”. You know who you are: you who compulsively squeeze productivity out of every waking moment, you who feel you’ve failed if you left a thing undone, you who keep moving because there’s no time to be still.

I’m with you.

Take a slow breath, then let it out even more slowly.

(I just noticed how furiously I’m clenching my teeth. Are you tensed up anywhere? Can you let the tension ease?)

Read this poem unhurriedly, letting each line unfold and wash over you.  

If for the rest
of your days
in this earth-body
you did nothing but
lie here on the ground,
fetus-like,
motionless but for your breath,
soundless but for the same,
seen by no one mortal,

Still the angels
would sing over you,
Worthy,
worthy,
worthy

Awestruck,
they would call you,
“She Who Exists”
or
“Glimmer of God”
or
“Precious Pearl”

My daughter Mabel, in a (rare) moment of stillness last week.

Thanks for reading The Diving Board. 💙