This World

I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it

nothing fancy.

But it seems impossible.

Whatever the subject, the morning sun

glimmers it.

The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open

and becomes a star.

The ants bore into the peony bud and there is a dark

     pinprick well of sweetness.

As for the stones on the beach, forget it.

Each one could be set in gold.

So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds

     were singing.

And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music

     out of their leaves.

And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and

     beautiful silence

as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too

     hurried to hear it.

As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs

     even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.

So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.

So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,

     and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,

so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being

     locked up in gold.

-- Mary Oliver, from New and Selected Poems, Volume Two

(Photo: Rainy day autumn fountain in Russell Square.)