IN BLACKWATER WOODS by MARY OLIVER
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.
The award-winning American poet Mary Oliver's (1935-2019) In Blackwater Woods' vividly describes a forest's luminous transformation. It invites us into its world with the simple invitation, 'Look', as it offers o contemplation on surrender. We have all endured losses. We have watched our lives as we knew them burn in the fire. When we are finally able to relinquish the worst of the suffering, we experience ()journey from grief to deliverance, from wood to pillars of light. To try to understand loss is to drive ourselves to the brink of madness. To accept it is salvation-but to achieve this we must be kind to ourselves as we practise the bittersweet art of letting go.
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