Learn The Flowers
stay together / learn the flowers / go light
These are the closing lines of "For the Children," a poem from Snyder's 1974 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Turtle Island, written as plain counsel for the generations who would inherit a strained and uncertain world. Snyder pictures the road ahead as a steep ridge and offers no grand theory, only small practical instructions for walking it well. "Learn the flowers" asks for real attention to the actual plants and creatures nearby, treating curiosity as a daily discipline rather than a rare mood. It is wonder stripped of mysticism, just the plain work of noticing what grows around you.
Reflection
Snyder's advice points toward curiosity about the ordinary things close at hand. What is one ordinary thing I could really learn today?