The sun blazes for everyone

I much feel the need for a poem today: a few words of respite amidst what has been a very heavy ten days or so. Karen from Tennessee sent this across awhile back (and I have run it before), and it fills me with a touch of hope for humanity and our planet. The sunrise photo is from Egypt at the Red Sea.

Tonight at 7 pm we will hold a special service of prayers and remembrance for the people of Haiti. Please join us if you can.

Here's the poem:

Sunrise
by Mary Oliver

You can
die for it --
an idea,
or the world. People

have done so,
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound

to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light. But

this morning,
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar
fabric of dawn, I thought

of China ,
and India
and Europe , and I thought
how the sun

blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises

under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?

What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us? Call it

whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire.