#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

My husband lovingly says, the good news is, when your cold is better, you will feel more alive than ever. And, in fact, his reminder does help; I believe him.

I strain through my morning walk to appreciate the lush beauty of a sunlit Florida day. And I'm grateful for waking up in the night and receiving a line from the poem I'm revising that I was afraid of breaking, because this line is an essential line that helps me see I am not breaking, but breaking open, the meaning of my poem. 

What I especially appreciate today: the sun beaming through palm fronds. I wonder what great poets have said about palms, and I find some treasures and choose this enchanting one by Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, who also happens to be a recipient of the Nobel prize in literature. The way the wind and the palm play with the essence of each other delights me. And the idea that a palm tree dreams and wishes and longs and travels – and then returns home, mind and body satisfied.

“Palm Tree :

Palm-tree: single-legged giant,
topping other trees,
peering at the firmament -
It longs to pierce the black cloud-ceiling
and fly away, away,
if only it had wings.

The tree seems to express its wish
in the tossing of its head:
its fronds heave and swish -
It thinks, Maybe my leaves are feathers,
and nothing stops me now
from rising on their flutter.

All day the fronds the windblown tree
soar and flap and shudder
as though it thinks it can fly,
As though it wanders in the skies,
travelling who knows where,
wheeling past the stars –

And then as soon as the wind dies down,
the fronds subside, subside:
the mind of the tree returns.
To earth, recalls that earth is its mother:
and then it likes once more
its earthly corner. ”

— Rabindranath Tagore