is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,
always it is a surprise
when her smoke-colored wings
open
and she turns
from the thick black water,
from the black sticks
of the summer pond,
and slowly,
rises into the air
and is gone.
Then, not for the first time or the last time,
I take a deep breath
of happiness, and I think
how unlikely it is
that death is a hole in the ground
how improbable
that ascension is not possible,
though everything seems so inert, so nailed
back into itself—
the muskrat and his lumpy lodge, the turtle, the fallen gate.
And especially it is wonderful
that the summers are long
and the ponds so dark and so many,
and therefore it isn’t a miracle
but the common thing,
this decision,
this trailing of the long legs in the water,
this opening up of the heavy body
into a new life: see how sudden
gray-blue sheets of her wings
strive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing
takes her in.
From “Heron Rises from the Dark, Summer Pond” in the collection “What Do We Know” by Mary Oliver.
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