Long Afternoon at the Edge of Little Sister Pond

As for life,
I'm humbled,
I'm without words
sufficient to say

how it has been hard as flint,
and soft as a spring pond,
both of these
and over and over,

and long pale afternoons besides,
and so many mysteries
beautiful as eggs in a nest,
still unhatched

though warm and watched over
by something I have never seen –
a tree angel, perhaps,
or a ghost of holiness.

Every day I walk out into the world
to be dazzled, then to be reflective.
It suffices, it is all comfort –
along with human love,

dog love, water love, little-serpent love,
sunburst love, or love for that smallest of birds
flying among the scarlet flowers.
There is hardly time to think about

stopping, and lying down at last
to the long afterlife, to the tenderness
yet to come, when
time will brim over the singular pond, and become forever,

and we will pretend to melt away into the leaves.
As for death,
I can't wait to be the hummingbird,
can you?

--Mary Oliver

[Photo from Stranda, Norway]

Violent Times

The world beyond my oasis

in the woods

writhes in agony, as violence

claims one life after another:

young men and women; children

and their teachers; peaceful citizens,

minding their own business, caught

in a maelstrom of bullets.

The most recent mass murder

took place in Orlando, Flordia.

But it might have been

anywhere, and even now, somewhere

as yet unknown,

there may be another individual

stoking the fires of fear,

discontent, and hatred

until they suddenly explode into gunfire and broken bodies,

leaving blood stains on pavement

that a sea of tears cannot

wash clean.

--Sydney Eddison

Keeping Silence

Where do the words

come from that

connect me to myself and

to the outside world?

The words that matter arise

from an inaccessible place

beyond the reach of will

and conscious mind.

They cannot be summoned up.

Only in peace and quiet

do they speak their names

softly into the attentive ear,

while the wind's eye

paints their portraits in color.

These are the words

for which I wait

each day.

--Sydney Eddison

[Photo of neighbor's pond in Wallingford, VT]