Lead
by Mary Oliver
Here is a story
to break your heart.
Are you willing?
This winter
the loons came to our harbor
and died, one by one,
of nothing we could see.
A friend told me
of one on the shore
that lifted its head and opened
the elegant beak and cried out
in the long, sweet savoring of its life
which, if you have heard it,
you know is a sacred thing.,
and for which, if you have not heard it,
you had better hurry to where
they still sing.
And, believe me, tell no one
just where that is.
The next morning
this loon, speckled
and iridescent and with a plan
to fly home
to some hidden lake,
was dead on the shore.
I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.
Chin up old gal x
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit wobbly John but yeah, it's climbing :)
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
Anytime, my friend. Hope today is a little better... unlike our weather! Keep climbing, one step at a time.
ReplyDeleteToday, GM, is like I know longer walk on eggshells.
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
Please take care
ReplyDeleteand Mary Oliver
always speaks to my heart..
Dear WWW, I don't wish to put a downer on either your or my own tears.
ReplyDelete"... it [heart] break open and never close to the rest of the world." That pretty much sums up how I have stumbled through the world from day one. Lucky disposition. Which is why I am always amazed, fazed when doors (oh so very unforgiving doors) close on me. Happens. To my dismay. There is nothing nothing nothing in this world that can't be mended. If only those who have the power to mend had the will to do so.
Hug,
U
Ursula thanks for that. I tend to put blinkers on and I get sideswiped too. I am trying at the moment to sequence all the words and string it together logically, as it so defies my own logic. I am hoping a poem I wrote about it more succinctly will be published soon.
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
And Ernestine, thank you too for all the support. I know why it happened and as I said to Ursula I will write more. This crap needs to be out there so others don't feel so desperately alone as I have for years. :(
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
I have no wise words, but you're not alone. The bad thing is that we're tired of slogging through these episodes by this point in our lives. The good thing is that we've been through this and know we will again feel joy, will again feel " the long, sweet savoring" of our own lives.
ReplyDeleteActually linda I'm savoring a bit of that at the moment.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
xo
WWW
This is the one Mary Oliver poem I cannot bear to read again - I read her sad poems but this one is too much. I sincerely hope you are on the upswing. There has been an extended "down time" for me, too, due to events out of my control. I function day to day. There is a big void where the joy was. I keep thinking about the time lost and wonder how much more will be....
ReplyDeleteThe best thing to do with this is to convert it into art, and you can do that.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea that if your heart is broken, it opens to the rest of the world. A broken heart is always half catastrophe but half a new beginning.
ReplyDelete