Song for the Morning's Open Hands

O day! I rise from my bed like a river rises after the spring rains,

I throw my arms wide and sing — not for sorrow, but for the grand clamor of being!

The trees shiver with laughter in the early breeze,

The sparrow rattles its small bright drum against the sky.

Today is no ordinary day — it is stitched in gold thread by unseen fingers,

It is a field tilled fresh, it is the bread broken among friends,

It is the salt on my lips and the blood in my feet as I walk the earth,

bare as a boy at the edge of a swimming hole.

I call to every man and woman — come out! come out!

Leave your closed houses and heavy dreams!

Let the sun press its sweet mouth to your skin,

Let the world bruise you with its beauty until you fall laughing into its arms.

I shout hallelujah to no church, to no altar but this:

The rattling leaves, the iron smell of the river,

The coarse hands of the world lifting me up, always lifting.

Bless the mud, bless the hound on the trail,

bless the worn shoes and the endless road ahead!

I am not alone — no, not ever!

The very grass knows my name, and the stones warm themselves for me.

Today, I belong to everything —

and everything belongs to me.