Mindful Living with Poetry

Don’t give me the whole truth,

don’t give me the sea for my thirst,
don’t give me the sky when I ask for light,
but give me a glint, a dewy wisp, a mote
as the birds bear water-drops from their bathing
and the wind a grain of salt.

Olav Hauge.  Selected Poems. White Pine Press. 1990.

 

Olav H. Hauge (1908 – 1994) lived all his life in Ulvik, a village in the west of Norway, where he made a living off the apple crop from his orchard, an acre in size. His poems begin with simple things, a wild wind dying to become a breeze, rough cut curb stones (stabbesteinar) along a country road, tramps, knives. His themes carefully build from the simple to universal and heartfelt. Pruning his trees was mindful work and he continued such with words on paper.

Mindfulness calls us to live in the moment, be it rest or work. Hauge’s poem centers his request on the dew he can comfortably hold in his hand. A wise man.