Landscape

A poem to meditate on this weekend.  I like the imagery in this poem so much.  We have a pond behind our house and there aren’t any oaks but I especially enjoy all the birds and ducks it brings to our backyard.  I’m not overly fond of crows (I once saw one while out on a walk around said pond with a mouthful of spaghetti hanging from its beak as it flew by – I think they’ll eat anything) but the last line of the poem is my favorite.

Landscape

by Mary Oliver

Isn’t it plain the sheets of moss,
except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they wanted about

spiritual patience?  Isn’t it clear
the black oaks along the apth are
standing
as though they were the most fragile
of flowers?

Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my
heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.

Every morning, so far, I’m alive.  And
now
the crows break off from the rest of
the darkness
and burst up into the sky–as though

all night they had thought of what
they would like
their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings.

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