The Uncarved Blog

At the Lake

A fish leaps
like a black pin —
then — when the starlight
strikes its side —

like a silver pin.
In an instant
the fish’s spine
alters the fierce line of rising

and it curls a little —
the head, like scalloped tin,
plunges back,
and it’s gone.

This is, I think,
what holiness is:
the natural world,
where every moment is full

of the passion to keep moving.
Inside every mind
there’s a hermit’s cave
full of light,

full of snow,
full of concentration.
I’ve knelt there,
and so have you,

hanging on
to what you love,
to what is lovely.
The lake’s

shining sheets
don’t make a ripple now,
and the stars
are going off to their blue sleep,

but the words are in place —
and the fish leaps, and leaps again
from the black plush of the poem,
that breathless space.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(White Pine)

Enjoy these other lovely poems by Mary Oliver: Summer Day, Varanasi, Praying, Wild Geese, Sunrise, White Owl Flies Into And Out Of The Field, The Journey, One, The Loon, and When Death Comes, which was included in her obituary Jan 17, 2019.

Rolf Erickson’s Mirror Lake creates a cosmic connection for the reader.

Tags: creativity, Mary Oliver, nature, writing poetry

This entry was posted on May 27, 2015 at 11:37 am and is filed under Literature, Mary Oliver, Other poems, Poetry, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.