How/when did I come to understand wonder?
The connection between WOW and wonder?
Wonder Woman?
Wonder bread?
I have been trying to write a poem about wonder, a word close to wander, wonderful, one world and a word dear to my heart. Instead of writing the poem, I am stuck in wonder like a broken record . . . and if you wonder what that is: it is a vinyl disc that contained recorded sound, sound released by a needle while the disc is turning at a certain speed on a device known as a record player. Wonder. A"broken record" isn't, like, smashed, but it has a deep scratch that causes it to play one sound, word, or phrase over and over as if the needle were stuck in a groove. Indeed it is. Stuck in a groove. Where I am today with wonder. Walking with wonder as if wonder was a playmate who took me out to play. Or if Wonder asked me out to play and Mom said no, but O Wonder! We did it anyway though I did not move an inch.
Groovy. Dadada dada dada. Life is groovy.
I went to Goodreads and copied these thoughts on wonder for me, and for you. Let them be friends. Please add more wonderful readings on wonder in the comments!
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
― William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
“I think us here to wonder, myself. To wonder. To ask. And that in wondering bout the big things and asking bout the big things, you learn about the little ones, almost by accident. But you never know nothing more about the big things than you start out with. The more I wonder, the more I love.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple
“O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in't!”
“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”
― Rachel Carson
“A Second Childhood.”
When all my days are endin
And I have no song to sing,
I think that I shall not be too old
To stare at everything;
As I stared once at a nursery door
Or a tall tree and a swing.
Wherein God’s ponderous mercy hangs
On all my sins and me,
Because He does not take away
The terror from the tree
And stones still shine along the road
That are and cannot be.
Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for wine,
But I shall not grow too old to see
Unearthly daylight shine,
Changing my chamber’s dust to snow
Till I doubt if it be mine.
Behold, the crowning mercies melt,
The first surprises stay;
And in my dross is dropped a gift
For which I dare not pray:
That a man grow used to grief and joy
But not to night and day.
Men grow too old for love, my love,
Men grow too old for lies;
But I shall not grow too old to see
Enormous night arise,
A cloud that is larger than the world
And a monster made of eyes.
Nor am I worthy to unloose
The latchet of my shoe;
Or shake the dust from off my feet
Or the staff that bears me through
On ground that is too good to last,
Too solid to be true.
Men grow too old to woo, my love,
Men grow too old to wed;
But I shall not grow too old to see
Hung crazily overhead
Incredible rafters when I wake
And I find that I am not dead.
A thrill of thunder in my hair:
Though blackening clouds be plain,
Still I am stung and startled
By the first drop of the rain:
Romance and pride and passion pass
And these are what remain.
― G.K. Chesterton, The Collected Poems of G. K. Chesterton
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Please add more inspiring readings--or links to inspiring readings-- on wonder in the comments!
Thank you.
