To Learn from Animal Being : John O'Donohue

​To Learn From Animal Being
 
Nearer to earth’s heart,
Deeper within its silence:
Animals know this world
In a way we never will.
 
We who are ever
Distanced and distracted
By the parade of bright
Windows thought opens:
Their seamless presence
Is not fractured thus..
 
Stranded between time
Gone and time emerging,
We manage seldom
To be where we are:
Whereas they are always
Looking our from 
The here and now.
 
May we learn to return
And rest in the beauty
Of animal being
Learn to lean low,
Leave our locked minds,
And with freed senses
Feel the earth
Breathing with us. 
 
May we enter 
Into lightness of spirit 
And slip frequently into
The feel of the wild.
 
Let the clear silence
Of our animal being
Cleanse our hearts
Of corrosive words.
 
May we learn to walk 
Upon the earth
With all their confidence
And clear-eyed stillness
So that our minds
Might be baptized
In the name of the wind
And the light and the rain.