“You know how it feels,
wanting to walk into
the rain and disappear–
wanting to feel your life
brighten and grow weightless
as a leaf in the fall.
And sometimes, for a moment,
you feel it beginning–the sense
of escape sharp as a knife-blade
hangs over the dark field
of your body, and your soul
waits just under the skin
to leap away over the water.
But the blade,
at the last minute, hesitates
and does not fall,
and the body does not open,
and you are what you are–
trapped, heavy and visible
under the rain, only your vision
delicate as old leaves skimming
over the mounds of the seasons,
the limits of everything,
the few shaped bones of time.”
Mary Oliver, At Blackwater Pond
I know I’ve made you all wonder what the question was, but tha
t doesn’t matter, really. This poem is what came to mind and is what distracted me from my own fumbling train of thought and clumsy words. Funny how poems or music so often do that for me; describe in carefully crafted images what my heart knows is true but can’t easily put to pen.
Thank you for the poem, the food for thought, and the beautiful photo.
Good work there getting pulled up out of the gloom and doom!
Lots of people here in the Pac. NW go just about total nuts in the long gray gloomy winter time! Others of us enjoy the low clouds, the drip, drip, and the once-in-a-while OMG day!
A nice bright room to be in part of the day is the best answer .. or Hawaii!
Poetry speaks the language of the heart.
I will share a particular favorite poem with students and point out how the poet cuts through everything–saying what we all can feel, but usually don’t have the words to express.
Sadly, too frequently what I get back is the blank faces of students who you just know are thinking HUH?
from one Mary Oliver fan to another.. I love this 🙂
(and thanks for dropping by Laura, have missed your words/photos)
Woo, what a gorgeous Mary Oliver. Thank you. I’d never seen this one.
Why are your landscape photos so much more beautiful than anyone else’s? What magic do you do?