dangerous and noble things

I keep bumping up against this poem this week - in particular the final 5 and a half lines - and whenever that happens - whenever a message comes at me from several directions, I try to pay enough attention to get it. 

... I want 
to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbably beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

The thing is, I've just been plain old tuckered out. I keep meaning to just suck it up and get back on track, but ... I'm tuckered out. 

I tried painting this week and ended up throwing out the canvas. I sat a the piano and didn't know where to place my fingers. I've started 4 blog posts, but the words evaporate. 

It was a good week. A big week. My birthday. Our anniversary. Accomplishments at work. And I'm tuckered out. 

I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I might just need to slay a dragon or two first. Or maybe just stretch my wings.

Starlings in Winter

Chunky and noisy,

but with stars in their black feathers,

they spring from the telephone wire

and instantly

they are acrobats

in the freezing wind.

And now, in the theater of air,

they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;

they float like one stippled star

that opens,

becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;

and you watch

and you try

but you simply can’t imagine

how they do it

with no articulated instruction, no pause,

only the silent confirmation

that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin

over and over again,

full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,

even in the ashy city.

I am thinking now

of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots

trying to leave the ground,

I feel my heart

pumping hard.  I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.

I want to be light and frolicsome.

I want to be improbably beautiful and afraid of nothing,

as though I had wings.

~ Mary Oliver ~