Mary Oliver, A Poem for the Blue Heron
1. Now the blue heron wades the cold ponds of November. In the gray light his hunched shoulders are also gray. He finds scant food--a few numbed breathers under a rind of mud. When the water he walks in begins turning to fire, clutching itself to itself like dark flames, hardening, he remembers. Winter. 2. I do not remember who first said to me, if anyone did: Not everything is possible; some things are impossible, and took my hand, kindly, and led me back from wherever I was. 3. Toward evening the heron lifts his long wings leisurely and rows forward into flight. He has made his decision: the south is swirling with clouds, but somewhere, fibrous with leaves and swamplands, is a cave he can hide in and live. 4. Now the woods are empty, the ponds shine like blind eyes, the wind is shouldering against the black, wet bones of the trees. In a house down the road, as though I had never seen these things-- leaves, the loose tons of water, a bird with an eye like a full moon deciding not to die, after all-- I sit out the long afternoons drinking and talking; I gather wood, kindling, paper; I make fire after fire after fire.
