It’s a shiver that climbs the trellis
of the spine, each tingle a bright white
morning glory breaking into blossom
beneath the skin. It can happen anywhere,
anytime, even finding this sleeve of ice
worn by a branch all morning, now fallen
on a bed of snow. You can choose to pause,
pick it up, hold the cold thing in your hand
or not. Few tell us that wonder and awe
are decisions we make daily, hourly,
minute by minute in the tiny offices
of the heart—tilting the head to look up
at every tree turned into a chandelier
by light striking ice in just the right way.

From The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace & Renewal. Storey Publishing, 2023.
Reprinted with kind permission of the author.

Photo by Ian.Photos


Awaken to Awe

What would it mean for you to create more moments of awe in your daily life? In this self-guided series, learn how the practice of grateful living can help you expand and deepen your experience of awe.

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James Crews
James Crews

James Crews is the author of the essay collection, Kindness Will Save the World, and editor of several bestselling poetry anthologies: Healing the Divide, The Path to Kindness, How to Love the World, and The Wonder of Small Things. He has been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, People Magazine, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post. He is the author of four prize-winning books of poetry: The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment, and his poems have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, The New Republic, and Prairie Schooner. James lives with his husband on forty rocky acres in the woods of Southern Vermont. For more information, visit: jamescrews.net.

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