West Wind by Mary Oliver Page B

poorly after all—and all in the cause of the crisp flight and the buzzing bliss of the words, as well as their directive—to make, of the body-bright commitment to life, and its passions, including (of course!) the passion of meditation, an exact celebration, or inquiry, employing grammar, mirth, and wit in a precise and intelligent way. Language is, in other words, not necessary, but voluntary. If it were necessary, it would have stayed simple; it would not agitate our hearts with ever-present loveliness and ever-cresting ambiguity; it would not dream, on its long white bones, of turning into song.

Shelley
    When I'm dying,
and near paradise,
maybe
the little boat will come
    like a cloud—
like a wing—
like a white light burning.
This morning,
    in the actual fog
beside the rocking sea,
there was nothing—
not a sail,
    not a soul.
There was only this—
an idea.
Beauty
    can die all right—
but don't you worry,
from utter darkness—
since opposites are, finally, the same—
    comes light's snowy field.
And, as for eternity, what's that
but the collation of all the hours we have known
of sweetness
    and urgency?
The boat bounced and sparkled,
then it trembled,
then it shook,
    then it lay down on the waves.
I believe in death.
I believe it is the last wonderful work.
So they spilled from the boat,
    they plunged toward darkness, they drowned.
You know the story.
How the sky flares and grows brighter, all the time!
How time extends!

Maples
    The trees have become
suddenly very happy
it is the rain
it is the quick white summer rain
    the trees are in motion under it
they are swinging back and forth they are tossing
the heavy blossoms of their heads
they are twisting their shoulders
even their feet chained to the ground feel good
thin and gleaming
    nobody can prove it but any fool can feel it
they are full of electricity now and the shine isn't just pennies
it pours out from the deepest den
oh pretty trees
patient deep-planted
    may you have many such days
flinging your bodies in silver circles shaking your heads
over the swamps and the pastures
rimming the fields and the long roads hurrying by.

The Osprey
    This morning
an osprey
with its narrow
black-and-white face
    and its cupidinous eyes
leaned down
from a leafy tree
to look into the lake—it looked
    a long time, then its powerful
shoulders punched out a little
and it fell,
it rippled down
    into the water—
then it rose, carrying,
in the clips of its feet,
a slim and limber
    silver fish, a scrim
of red rubies
on its flashing sides.
All of this
    was wonderful
to look at,
so I simply stood there,
in the blue morning,
    looking.
Then I walked away.
Beauty is my work,
but not my only work—
    later,
when the fish was gone forever
and the bird was miles away,
I came back
    and stood on the shore, thinking—
and if you think
thinking is a mild exercise,
beware!
    I mean, I was swimming for my life—
and I was thundering this way and that way
in my shirt of feathers—
and I could not resolve anything long enough
    to become one thing
except this: the imaginer.
It was inescapable
as over and over it flung me,
    without pause or mercy it flung me
to both sides of the beautiful water—
to both sides
of the knife.

That Sweet Flute John Clare
    That sweet flute John Clare;
that broken branch Eddy Whitman;
Christopher Smart, in the press of blazing electricity;
my uncle the suicide;
Woolf on her way to the river;
Wolf, of the sorrowful songs;
Swift, impenetrable murk of Dublin;
Schumann, climbing the bridge, leaping into the Rhine;
Ruskin, Cowper;
Poe, rambling in the gloom-bins of Baltimore and Richmond—
    light of the world, hold me.

Sand Dabs, Three
    Six black ibis
step through the black and mossy panels
of summer water.
    Six times
I sigh with delight.
    ***
    Keep looking.
    ***
    The way a muskrat
in the snick of its teeth can carry
long branches of leaves.
    ***
    Small hawks
cleaning their beaks
in the sun.
    ***
    If you think