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Spiritual reflection to start the day with Dr Linden Bicket, a teacher of literature and religion at Edinburgh University's School of Divinity

Good morning. Earlier this summer, the American poet Fanny Howe died at the age of eighty-four. The author of more than twenty books of poetry, novels, essays, and short stories, Fanny Howe was a celebrated and accomplished writer who was finalist for the 2015 International Booker Prize and was awarded the prestigious Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize by the Poetry Foundation in 2009.

One of the works of Howe’s that struck me very deeply around the time that her death was announced is the poem ‘I Won’t Be Able to Write From the Grave’. This poem is very short, made up of only seven lines, and yet it speaks powerfully about the good things in life. The poem’s speaker names simple pleasures – good, wholesome food and drink, the beauty of poems and songs, the elements, children, companionship, and ‘the short northern nights’. There is something so uncomplicated, but so beautiful and true about the poem’s cataloguing of things which make up a life and offer consolation and pleasure. The poet Christian Wilman captures exactly how special Howe’s work is when he says that it ‘makes you more alert and alive to the earth.’

This month, Edinburgh, where I teach, is filled with new voices, including those of poets, as we enjoy festival time. Even if you aren’t a fan of poetry, I invite you to consider some of your simplest and dearest pleasures, as the speaker of Howe’s poem does. What makes you feel more alive and alert to the earth? What do you cherish in the world? For me, this might include feeding garden birds, making my little daughter laugh, taking long walks with my husband, and treasuring the friendships that sustain me.

Loving God, help us to count the smallest of our blessings in a difficult and complicated world. May we find your presence and grace in the midst of our ordinary existence. Amen.