Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Revisiting a favorite poem


"This morning I watched the deer...
with beautiful lips touching the tips of the cranberries, setting their hooves down
in the dampness carelessly, isn't it after all
the carpet of their house, their home, whose roof
is the sky?
 Why, then, was I suddenly miserable?
 Well, this is nothing much.
this is the heaviness of the body watching the swallows
gliding just under that roof.

This is the wish that the deer would not lift their heads
and leap away, leaving me there alone.
This is the wish to touch their faces, their brown wrists
to sing some sparkling poem into
the folds of their ears,
then walk with them,
over the hills
and over the hills

and into the impossible trees."

I love this Mary Oliver poem and always wish that I could "...walk with them, over the hills..."
Does anyone else feel like this? 

5 comments:

  1. it is beautiful....i often watch the deer in our back yard...they surely have their needs but i adore their freedom

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  2. No, but I have often wished I could just hop on the back of my horse and gallop over the hill.... ;-)

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  3. A beautiful poems and great photos. Have a blessed day. Madeine

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  4. Always...I love the line about "touching their brown wrists".
    I just wrote a rather scathing letter to the editor of our local paper about people not watching for deer on the road.
    The previous week I had to see one suffer until the police came to put her out of her misery.
    They are such gentle and beautiful creatures.
    Lovely photos to go with the poem Connie.

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  5. This is also one of my favorite MO poems. Such beautiful phrases and images. Your photos are the perfect accompaniment.

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