In honor of spring’s arrival and my lovely walk back from Georgetown, I found this poem by Mary Oliver.
Spring
by Mary OliverSomewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staringdown the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early springI think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tonguelike a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledgeto sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever elsemy life is
with its poems
and its music
and its cities,it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;all day I think of her–
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.(from House of Light)