I Wish I Could Write Like This

 LIFE STORY

When I lived under the black oaks

I felt I was made of leaves.

When I lived by the Little Sister Pond,

I dreamed I was the feather of the blue heron

left on the shore;

I was the pond lily, my root delicate as an artery,

my face like a star,

my happiness brimming.

Later I was the footsteps that follow the sea.

I knew the tides, I knew the ingredients of the wrack.

I knew the eider, the red-throated loon

with his uplifted beak and his smart eye.

I felt I was the tip of the wave,

the pearl of water on the eider’s glossy back.

No, there’s no escaping, nor would I want to escape

this outgo, this foot-loosening, this solution 

to gravity and a single shape.

Now I am here, later I will be there.

I will be that small cloud, staring down at the water,

the one that stalls, that lifts its white legs, that

looks like a lamb.


Mary Oliver -2012

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 9, 2021 at 9:19 AM

    Thank you, Susan. This brings such a sense of peace.

    ReplyDelete
  2. SandiMarch 11, 2021 at 10:58 AM

    Beautiful Susan.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownMarch 13, 2021 at 10:22 AM

    Thanks! I love this and have never read it before. xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  4. TC/KLJuly 6, 2021 at 10:32 AM

    I’m sure like many, you’re rereading these post today’s. I remember seeing the title of this entry and wanted to say to Susan that you do write like this. She may have not written poetry (maybe she did), but these few entries have moved me in a way that poetry does. I’m a better person for knowing Susan.

    ReplyDelete

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