[New-Poetry] Mary Oliver on the Writer's Almanac

[Uche Ogbuji]

Anny Ballardini wrote:
> This poem seems beautiful to me while listening to Out of the Night by
> Einaudi, it might change in other circumstances.

It's classic Mary Oliver, which is beautiful, subtle and rich.  She's
probably my favorite contemporary poet on the topic of nature.

--Uche

>     In Blackwater Woods
> 
> by Mary Oliver
> <http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,fycp,dv,5w5y,lgkl,3hrs,fxvj>
> 
> 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.
> 
> "In Blackwater Woods" by Mary Oliver, from /American Primitive/. © Back
> Bay Books, 1983. Reprinted with permission. (buy now
> <http://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=fj6,fycp,dv,3vr8,2opr,3hrs,fxvj>)
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Anny Ballardini
> http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
> http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
> http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
> http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
> I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
> star!
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
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-- 
Uche Ogbuji                       http://uche.ogbuji.net
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