she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts,
her pockets full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before,
a stone on the riverbed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom.
By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
- Mary Oliver
No comments:
Post a Comment