Wholly Foolish Holy Fools

It’s April 1^st and I woke up in the jet-lagged morning and did something wholly foolish—I began the day reading some Mary Oliver poems. Then I stepped out onto the sunlit deck and noticed the wisteria announcing the first notes of their purple Spring song. There is the wise, holy fool and then the foolish fool, the one (that’s me) who keeps missing the treasures because he thinks his life is so interesting and important and necessary to the world and thus, labors incessantly with his little lists and avalanches of e-mails, busies himself with scheduled appointments and electronic distractions and misses it all. The first robin singing “I’m back!”, the plum tree dressed in its dark red work clothes after its pink-blossomed debutante ball, the bees and birds flittering here and there delivering their pollen messages. I’ve been a week away from home and most things look the same, but nothing is. The leaved branches have stretched one inch closer to the sun, the sun sinks into the water just a little bit further to the right, the creatures are afoot prowling with the stir of sexual longing. There are all sorts of calls criss-crossing in the air that the Internet doesn’t pick up, but the migratory birds, whales and salmon do.

Sometimes I wish I could be as wise a fool as Mary Oliver, who daily tunes herself to Nature’s frequencies, turns her dial to the botanic bandwidth, foregoes French coffee and drinks daily from the fresh, sparkling waters of the babbling brook, listening to the jazz of its changes under the bird call riffs without any hard plastic in her ears.

Yes, it’s April 1st and for once, I have had the good sense to wait before attending to the tasks of vacation’s end—the laundry, the shopping, the class plans, all the etc. of our two-legged life. I remembered briefly to look and listen and love what the World offers, the complex simplicity and simple complexity of the day unfolding with its breezes, birds, bees and blossoms. To follow the path of the Holy Fools and be wholly a fool on this Spring day glistening with promise and fulfillment. 

Happy April Fools Day!