Forever busy, it seems,
with words,
finally
I put the pen down
and crumple
most of the sheets
and leave one or two,
sometimes a few,
for the next morning.
Day after day -
year after year -
it has gone on this way,
I rise from the chair,
I put on my jacket
and leave the house
for that other world -
the first one,
the holy one -
where the trees say
nothing the toad says
nothing the dirt
says nothing and yet
what has always happened
keeps happening:
the trees flourish,
the toad leaps,
and out of the silent dirt
the blood - red roses rise.
Mary Oliver
Photo: Peter Bowers