It’s a beautiful Friday night, one of the final ones of the summer season, and it just seems to cry out for some poetry. I offer you this one by the great Mary Oliver, who is Frostian in her ability to evoke emotion through imagery of the natural world:

Sometimes I Am Victorious and Even Beautiful
            ~Mary Oliver

Sometimes I am victorious and even beautiful —
as when I go down to the pond in the half-light
and wade out into the black water,
where I unloop the taut lines from the willow stakes
      and bend to the weight
and lift the trap from the water — not slowly and carefully
      as in ordinary work, but hard and fast —

and open it,
and stare down and see the turtle’s foot-wide mossy shell
and he sees me
      and he thrashes

and I gaze into his pink throat and haul him higher
and he hisses, his eyes shine
and the tongue wags in the gaping, beak-shaped mouth
and I shake him from the trap, his thick head flashing,

      and he swims away

and I close the trap with the heels of my boots, and fling it
into the bullbriar wracked and useless,

and the pink sun rises and sees me, by the black water,
smiling,
      washing my hands.

Thanks to Jen, who clued me in to the fact that some people actually post poetry every week!