Reply #43: And that is good.

[Xipe Totec]

Today I went for a walk in the neighborhood, as I try to do as often as I can, and I saw an earthworm baking on the pavement; sun burnt, covered in sand, but still alive. I walked ten paces past it and could not go any further. I had to go back,pick it up, and put it back in the wet grass. I don't know if it will make it, but at least I know that I tried to help another living being today.

WHEN YOU LEARN TO FIND A SMILE

ENRIQUE GONZALEZ MARTINEZ
Mexican Diplomat and Poet
(1871-1952)

http://palabravirtual.com/index.php?ir=ver_poema1.php&pid=378


When you learn to find a smile
in the subtle drops that exude
from porous rocks in the mist,
or from the sun, the birds, and the breeze;

When nothing to your eyes remains lifeless,
or amorphous, or colorless, or distant,
and you grasp life and the mysteries
of silence, shadows and death.

When you can cast your gaze at the different
paths of the cosmos, and your effort
becomes a potent microscope
that discovers invisible universes;

Only then in a blazing bonfire
of infinite and superhuman love,
like St. Francis of Assisi, will make brothers
of the tree, the jungle and the beast.

And you will feel in the immense multitude
of beings and things your own self;
and will become fear itself before the abyss
and will become pride itself upon the summit.

Your love will shake off the defiling pollen
that stains the very whiteness of the lily,
you will bless the sandy seashores
and cherish the flight of insects;

And you will kiss the briar thorns
And the silky petals of the dahlias…
And piously cast off your sandals
to keep from hurting the stones along your path.