Landscape.

Landscape

   Isn't it plain the sheets of moss, except that
   they have no tongues, could lecture
   all day if they wanted about

   spiritual patience? Isn't it clear
   the black oaks along the path are standing
   as though they were the most fragile of flowers?

   Every morning I walk like this around
   the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
   ever close, I am as good as dead.

   Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And now
   the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
   and burst up into the sky--as though

   all night they had thought of what they would like
   their lives to be, and imagined
   their strong, thick wings.

From Dream Work, copyright 1986 by Mary Oliver.

Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc., and the author.