In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees

are turning 

their own 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,

and every pond,

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 on it;

and, when the time comes to 

let it go,

to let it go.

~Mary Oliver

xo