Don't call this world adorable, or useful, that's not it. <br />It's frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds. <br />The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil. <br />The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold. <br />But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white <br />feet of the trees <br />whose mouths open. <br />Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance? <br />Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe, <br />until at last, now, they shine <br />in your own yard? <br />Don't call this world an explanation, or even an education. <br />When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking <br />outward, to the mountains so solidly there <br />in a white-capped ring, or was he looking <br />to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea <br />that was also there, <br />beautiful as a thumb <br />curved and touching the finger, tenderly, <br />little love-ring, <br />as he whirled, <br />oh jug of breath, <br />in the garden of dust?<br /><br />Mary Oliver<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/where-does-the-dance-begin-where-does-it-end/
