Goldfinches

You must change your life — Rilke.

My daughter gave me a book of Mary Oliver’s poetry and suggested I begin with her poem, Invitation. No Mary doesn’t suggest we change our life in its normal meaning. Instead Mary suggests the we “linger for just a little while out of your busy and very important day for the goldfinches that have gathered in a field of thistles.”

One of God’s smallest creations a goldfinch can “sing the highest note,” especially outside one’s window early in a Charlotte morning. Mary suggests that the goldfinch’s singing reminds us “just to be alive…in this broken world.”

It is easy to let this broken world depress and exhaust you. Mary reminds us that for every bit of bad news or diagnosis there is a song to be sung. That is what she is saying when she quotes Rilke.

What song will you sing this day?

 

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About the author

Webb Hubbell is the former Associate Attorney General of The United States. His novels, When Men Betray, Ginger Snaps, A Game of Inches, The Eighteenth Green, and The East End are published by Beaufort Books and are available online or at your local bookstore. When Men Betray won one of the IndieFab awards for best novel in 2014. Ginger Snaps and The Eighteenth Green won the IPPY Awards Gold Medal for best suspense/thriller. His latest, “Light of Day” will be on the bookstands soon.