G r a t i t u d e
 |
| detail of silk painting by Dot. While searching on the internet for a graphic I discovered a spiral being used to symbolize Gratitude and remembered my own painting, with spirals. |
by Mary Oliver, West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems
Houghton Mifflin, Boston (1997), p. 35
I was walking the field,
in the fatness of spring
the field was flooded with water, water stained black,
black from the tissues of leaves, oak mostly, but also
beech, also
blueberry, bay.
Then the big hawk rose. In her eyes
I could see how thoroughly she
hated me. And there was her nest, like a round raft
with three white eggs in it, just
above the black water.
* * *
She floats away..................Halfway to my knees
climbs the invisible air..........in the black water
on her masculine wings........I look up
then glides back..................I cannot stop looking up
agitated responsible............how much time has passed
climbs again angry..............I can hardly see her now
does not look at me...........swinging in that blue blaze.
* * *
There are days when I rise from my desk desolate.
There are days when the field water and the slender grasses
......and the wild hawks
have it all over the rest of us
whether or not they make clear sense, ride the beautiful
long spine of grammar, whether or not they rhyme.
.
