Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
— Mary Oliver, "In Blackwater Woods"
A poem can be many things: an elegy, a lament, a cry from the heart, a prayer. Sometimes it can be all of these things at once.
But often, all one can really hope is that the right poem can comfort a heart wracked with pain and worry. Here's hoping that is the case now.
Amen.
© 2011 The Epicurean Dealmaker. All rights reserved.
