after Mary Oliver
The ocean has an idea, and the black bird
skimming its foamy whitecaps, and the dogs
running along its shore, as if nothing else
mattered except this moment,
as if they all—
the ocean, the birds, the dogs—
are part of some great symphony that we humans,
with our reason-loving minds, can’t hear. And O,
how they play it!
You call it the trick of living—
can you tell me more, you mystic,
you brave saint in a great cloud of witnesses,
you who began each morning under the doorframe
of your own imagination, poised and wild, can you tell me
how to pry my fists from this wrinkled map glued
to my fingertips, how to untether my heart from
this ebbing ache that insists something
is missing, out-of-tune, something
barely out of my grasp, something
blowing in the wind, something
better around the next bend?
Can you tell me how to dance
into the open sea?
Quieter, down the shore, the grove
of green things hums its harmony,
fallen trees and flowers reminiscent of fairies
that burst from death we humans,
with our greedy hearts, have wrought.
No gardener tends to them, and yet they persist,
bloom, they reach their heads into the rain,
they explode, redeemed, death
made beautiful, still singing
through the song of the living.
