Never Before

Living gratefully I embrace the day ahead, knowing it will offer gifts as well as challenges. I embrace the opportunity to practice presence.

Never before . . . have I stopped at the bridge I stopped at last evening on a bike ride. It was nearing dusk before I left; cloudy, chilly, the light and colors changing. My kind of fall evening. Riding to one of my favorite spots, a high bridge over the Vermillion River, I paused as I often do. The scene is always stunning to me.

Turning my bike around, I headed home. Less than a mile from home is another bridge, much lower, across the same river. I have run and biked past it many, many times. But never before have I stopped my bike, hung on to the fence there, and watched the river flow beneath, enjoying a moment of presence.

Why the heck not? Good question. I am always on my way somewhere. Sometimes I can just be on my way to being still.

Never before . . . have I written a poem for National Poem Day. Thanks to my sister Zita for clueing me in that yesterday was National Poem Day. It started in the UK in 1994 and this year marks the 25th anniversary.

Here is my little offering, and my wish for you today to try something you have never done before. A pause. A poem. A change in perspective. You will see something like never before and that will be one of your gifts today.

If I Were a Poem . . .

If I were a poem
for a day,
I would be not too long
and not too short,
but just right.

If I were a poem
for a day,
I would grab
as many readers
as I could
and hook them
with my wit,
whimsy,
and wisdom.

If I were a poem
for a day,
I would bask in 
the beauty of the 
words that make me
who I am.