“I don’t want to live a small life. Open your eyes, open your hands. I have just come from the berry fields, the sun.”

– Mary Oliver, ‘I don’t want to live a small life.”

“A life in fear and anger is the smallest of lives,

the cruelest waste,

I can say this to you because I lived

such a small life

for so long a time,

and I knew my soul was drying up,

it had shrunk to the size of a pinhead

and my heart had lost it’s voice,

and could only whisper,

and hope and risk had turned my spirit cold,

and hope had fled.

So do, look at me, look at my flowers,

I wander this hill every morning, a lonely pilgrim still,

in search of them, they sing softly to me,

they remind me to start the day anew,

take the new chance every day is,

take the leap, worship time, the

God of all.

Look at me.

Listen to me.

Open your life.

Open your hands.

Open your heart.

Open your mind.

Unlock the shackles on your soul,

and set her free. To find the berry fields, the garden,

the sun.

Kiss me with your golden mouth,

and ride winged clouds,

my last gift to you.