Sunday, April 18, 2010

Morning Walk

By Mary Oliver

Little by little
the ocean

empties its pockets - 
foam and fluff;

and the long, tangled ornateness
of seaweed;

or the whelks,
ribbed or with ivory knobs;

but so knocked about
in the sea's blue hands

and their story is at length only
about the wholeness of destruction - 

they come one by one
to the shore

to the shallows
to the mussel-dappled rocks

to the rise to dryness
to the edge of the town

to offer, to the measure that we will accept it,
this wisdom:

though the hour be whole
though the minute be deep and rich

though the heart be a singer of hot red songs
and the mind be as lightning,

what all the music will come to is nothing,
only the sheets of fog and the fog's blue bell -

you do not believe it now, your are not supposed to,
you do not believe it yet - but you will -

morning by singular morning,
and shell by broken shell.
Blessings,
Roger

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