Service, gladly rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God's help, the knowledge that at home or in the world we are partners in a common effort, the well understood fact that in God's light all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely brings a full return ... These are permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes.
True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and to walk humbly under the grace of God.
floating indifferent in eddies of
rooftop air, circling the black
chimney-cowls,
a spring night entered
my mind through the tight-closed window,
wearing
a loose Russian shirt of
light silk.
For this, then,
that slanting
line was left, that crack, the pane
never replaced.