The Wild Swans at Coole
Category: Nature
This has been one of those weeks. You know what I mean, don’t you? Whatever you had planned somehow did not get done. I dislike weeks or even days like this, but now and then something grasps your time and snatches it from your keeping and you lose control.
During weeks like this one and the one just before, I often lose my timing for my Wednesday blog post. If something comes to mind that I can share with you, I’ll post it on another day and hope that you derive something from it. Continue reading
Sitting here in the Pacific NW in mid-April, dark gray days with rain one day, snow the next. Sometimes wind and thunderstorms. Dumping of hail yesterday; it lingers still. I watch for nature’s population. Mary Oliver had a unique perspective on nature as can be seen in her poem, On Winter’s Margin.
I had another post underway for today, but our weather patterns in Oregon have been rather strange. Maybe they are mystifying where you live as well. One day last week we enjoyed a sunny day with a temperature of 75. Then our weather predictors began talking snow from the height of the mountains down to the valley floor where we live. My first paragraph above describes this week, so far. These conditions drew me to Oliver’s poem.
Now sit back and enjoy Mary Oliver’s poem. As always, Oliver fills her stanzas with an understanding of shadow and light both in nature and in human nature.
Sherrey
Featured Image Attribution: Photo by Valentin Hintikka on Unsplash
ON WINTER'S MARGIN by Mary Oliver
On winter’s margin, see the small birds now
With half-forged memories come flocking home
To gardens famous for their charity.
The green globe’s broken; vines like tangled veins
Hang at the entrance to the silent wood.
With half a loaf, I am the prince of crumbs;
By snow’s down, the birds amassed will sing
Like children for their sire to walk abroad!
But what I love, is the gray stubborn hawk
Who floats alone beyond the frozen vines;
And what I dream of are the patient deer
Who stand on legs like reeds and drink that wind; -
They are what saves the world: who choose to grow
Thin to a starting point beyond this squalor.
~~ From Famous Poets & Poems