For Mary

Somewhere

a black bear 

has just risen from sleep

and is staring

down the mountain. 

All night

in the brisk and shallow restlessness

of early spring

I think of her,

her four black fists

flicking the gravel,

her tongue

like a red fire

touching the grass,

the cold water.

There is only one question:

how to love this world.

I think of her

rising

like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against

the silence

of the trees

Whatever else

my life is

with its poems

and its music

and its glass cities

it is also this dazzling darkness

coming 

down the mountain,

breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her-

her white teeth

her wordlessness,

her perfect love.

*******

Spring by M. Oliver

Well wishes to poet Mary Oliver.