Poem: “In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees 

are turning 

their own bodies 

into pillars 

of light, 

are giving off the rich 

fragrance of cinnamon 

and fulfillment, 

the long tapers 

of cattails 

are bursting and floating away over 

the blue shoulders 

of the ponds, 

and every pond, 

no matter what its 

name is, is 

nameless now. 

Every year 

everything 

I have ever learned 

in my lifetime 

leads back to this: the fires 

and the black river of loss 

whose other side 

is salvation, 

whose meaning 

none of us will ever know. 

To live in this world 

you must be able 

to do three things: 

to love what is mortal; 

to hold it 

against your bones knowing 

your own life depends on it; 

and when the time comes to let it 

go, 

                                           to let it go.