Thursday, April 21, 2016

Thursday Poem - Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth 
remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

Mary Oliver,
from  Twelve Moons)

3 comments:

Barbara Rogers said...

Thank you so much! Happy birthday John Muir, founder of The Sierra Club.

christinalfrutiger said...

What a beautiful poem and photograph of twilight. My favorite time of the evening....

The Furry Gnome said...

Beautiful picture!