Hello, and welcome back to Practicing Human, the podcast where every day we're getting

a little better at life.

I'm your host, Cory Muscara, and in today's episode we're going to talk about lingering

in happiness.

More to come on that in a moment.

Let's settle in together with the sound of the bells.

So this is a poem by Mary Oliver.

It's called lingering in happiness.

As I read these words, just notice how they land for you.

You're welcome to close your eyes and see if you can hear with all of the senses.

Your ears, yes, but you're feeling sense and anything that you see in your mind and

smells that come to mind, even tastes.

So again, this is lingering in happiness.

After rain, after many days without rain, it stays cool, private and cleansed.

Under the trees, and the dampness there, married now to gravity, falls branch to branch,

leaf to leaf, down to the ground, where it will disappear, but not, of course, vanish,

except to our eyes.

The roots of the oaks will have their share, and the white threads of the grasses and the

cushion of moss.

A few drops round as pearls will under the mulls tunnel, and soon so many small stones

buried for a thousand years will feel themselves being touched.

So I think there's so many ways to feel into this poem and make meaning of it.

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