four good things from the earth

Earlier this week I was out running on a wet morning, and was rewarded by encountering four creatures that I like. First, two birds: an Eastern Pheobe, which has been gone all winter, and then a Pileated Woodpecker, which is always an amazing bird to see. I was pretty excited about those and was thinking about them, when I looked down and almost stepped on a little salamander! Yellow-murky brown with bright orange dots. Delightful. Then not 20 yards later I came across a good-sized land snail, inching along. I brought him home with me, though I'll release him soon. He's in a jar and not very happy, but also not dead.

So these things are gifts. I recognize that pretty easily, because I'm delighted by them, and it seems natural. There are other things that are gifts too, though I may not ask for them or believe I want them. But they have been given to me. I'm not much of a poetry-reader, but recently I've discovered a poet named Mary Oliver, and I read this by her the other day:

The Uses of Sorrow
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.


I think there probably are many boxes of darkness stashed away, and hopefully I can find some use for them.