Every morning the world is created

Summer sketches.

Hello there! And welcome to Dandelion Seeds, an illustrated newsletter in search of beauty and wonder in the world.

Last week, I loved reading how many of you connected with the Mary Oliver poem I shared, “In Blackwater Woods.” 

It just so happens that the sketch I was planning to share this week also features a few lines from Mary Oliver, whom I’m beginning to think of as our beloved patron saint of Dandelion Seeds.

These lines are from her “Morning Poem.” I find the poem so moving — and such a balm for everything going on in the world right now — that I’ve shared it in its entirety beneath the sketch below.

But first, I want to leave you with this picture of hope:

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches…

With love,
Candace

Morning Poem
by Mary Oliver

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches—
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead—
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging—

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted—

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.