'Poem for the week' -- "A Toast":
To your voice, a mysterious virtue,
to the 53 bones of one foot, the four dimensions of breathing,
to pine, redwood, sworn-fern, peppermint,
to hyacinth and bluebell lily,
to the train conductor’s donkey on a rope,
to smells of lemons, a boy pissing splendidly against the trees.
Bless each thing on earth until it sickens,
until each ungovernable heart admits: “I confused myself
and yet I loved—and what I loved
I forgot, what I forgot brought glory to my travels,
to you I traveled as close as I dared, Lord.”
-- Ilya Kaminsky
This seems both too low and too high (simultaneously) in the aspiration of human honesty. Could we not do more? Perhaps, this is all we can ever even hope to do. Is it not true that we travel...as close to God as we dare?
Ah, but may God increase our understanding of how close we already are.
