Ms.Mary illuminates the darkness as only Ms. Mary can

In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees
are turning
their bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
to live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal,
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends upon it;
an when the times come to let it go,
to let it go

Image by bobtravis