September 21
Morning has come, the hillside is full of dew, the lark is rising: God is in heaven — all is right with the world.
Pippa Passes (freely rendered)
Listening mode
Morning has come, the hillside is full of dew, the lark is rising: God is in heaven — all is right with the world.
Sometimes a kind of assent arrives for no reason. You go down a flight of stairs, a door clicks shut behind you, and for a moment nothing seems to be missing. Nothing has been resolved. The email you keep avoiding is still unwritten, and the morning's news has not got any better.
That is exactly why this feeling can make you suspicious. It looks like a verdict on how things stand, and as a verdict it would plainly be wrong. Yet it doesn't actually claim anything. It doesn't count things up or weigh them. It is more like an assent that comes before any examination. That is also why it cannot be refuted.
It only becomes difficult when you want to pass it on. To someone who has just had something go wrong, you cannot say that everything is fine. The sentence holds true only as long as it isn't meant to explain anything to anyone.
You walk on. Across the street someone is waiting at the bus stop, head bowed, and the moment does not leave you right away.
