Love What is Mortal

The rest of the family went for a long walk yesterday and I stayed behind to finish up some chores. When I next looked up I realized the sun was going down and it was getting much colder. I knew that jackets had been left at home because of the sunny, almost spring- like weather, and I worried they'd all be feeling the sudden chill. Knowing that they had probably headed for the pond I grabbed jackets and my camera and set off to find them.

They weren't at the pond ... in fact, they were back at home already -- we'd crossed paths at some point unaware ... but I did snap a couple of shots at pondside. The first in a long time. Think I'll go out today for more.

In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver in "American Primative"


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.

Uploaded by Sparky2* on 23 Jan 11, 12.07PM CST.