Poem displayed at the 'Mandala Temple'

Attended a day of the 'WATIS' conference on ecology and education at Visthar. Somebody told VS that we should see the mandala temple, and we went there. It was a beautiful place- the most notable thing I saw there was this poem displayed there-

To Look at Any Thing

To look at any thing,
If you would know that thing,
You must look at it long:
To look at this green and say,
"I have seen spring in these
Woods," will not do - you must
Be the thing you see:
You must be the dark snakes of
Stems and ferny plumes of leaves,
You must enter in
To the small silences between
The leaves,
You must take your time
And touch the very peace
They issue from.

~ John Moffitt ~

Thought this was beautiful... do we ever look at things, people in this way? do we ever make this kind of contact? if we don't, isn't life pointless then? half-lived? Searching for this poem on the net led me to-

http://www.panhala.net/Archive/To_Look.html

and I found this treasure of poems at

http://www.panhala.net/Archive/Index.html

Found this poem I had read but forgotten years back, out here-

Love

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills.
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.
Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn't always understand.

~ Czeslaw Milosz ~

I must learn to serve if I wish to understand... must get out and volunteer in some programs