the earth breathing

{above: Childe Hassam "The Goldfish Bowl"-- this painting is a tad too prettily ideal to fall into the middle of my taste, but I've always loved that light-filled orb and the sense of the open window letting in the smell of new spring. It reminds me of the cover of Sue Monk Kidd's "The Secret Life of Bees," a novel I wanted to like, maybe more than I actually did, because I loved the painting of the honey jar.}

Thank you Shawna, for being a more savvy googler. And, in Seattle today, where the yellow-green leaves are swaying against a blue whose name is fresh, this poem is even more potent:

This fevers me, this sun on green,

On grass glowing, this young spring.

The secret hallowing is come,

Regenerate sudden incarnation,

Mystery made visible

In growth, yet subtly veiled in all,

Understandable in grass,

In flowers, and in the human heart,

This lyric mortal loveliness,

The earth breathing, and the sun.

(From "A Bravery of Earth" by Richard Ghormley Eberhart)