Heron Rises from the Dark, Summer Pond
So
heavy
is the long-necked,
long-bodied heron,
always it is a
surprise
when her smoke-colored
wings
open
and she
turns
from the thick
water,
from the black
sticks
of the summer
pond,
and
slowly
rises into the
air
and is
gone.
Then, not for the first or
the last time,
I take the deep
breath
of happiness, and I
think
how unlikely it
is
that death is a hole in the
ground,
how
improbable
that ascension is not
possible,
though everything seems so
inert, so nailed
back into itself
--
the muskrat and his lumpy
lodge,
the
turtle,
the fallen
gate.
And especially it is
wonderful
that the summers are
long
and the ponds so dark and so
many,
and therefore it isn't a
miracle
but the common
thing,
this
decision,
this trailing of the long
legs in the water,
this opening up of the heavy
body
into a new life: see how the
sudden
gray-blue sheets of her
wings
strive toward the wind; see
how the clasp of nothing
takes her
in.
~ Mary Oliver
~
(What Do We Know:Poems
and Prose Poems)
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