Walt Whitman Was Here

Those of you who know me well know that poetry is my first love. It is one of those gifts of language that leaves me aware only of my breathing. A good poem is felt in that hollow space below the heart. It is a thing known the at the moment your mouth reads that last word. Call it instinct, call it grace--a good poem is felt, not thought.

I've decided to start a new segment on my blog: Walt Whitman Was Here. Each week I will post some of my old favorites and maybe some of the new poems I come across.

Enjoy this week's poem: "At Great Pond" by Mary Oliver.
Feel free to comment on your impressions, or simply soak it in.

At Great Pond
by Mary Oliver

At Great Pond
the sun, rising,
scrapes his orange breast
on the thick pines,
and down tumble
a few orange feathers into
the dark water.
On the far shore
a white bird is standing
like a white candle ---
or a man, in the distance,
in the clasp of some meditation ---
while all around me the lilies
are breaking open again
from the black cave
of the night.
Later, I will consider
what I have seen ---
what it could signify ---
what words of adoration I might
make of it, and to do this
I will go indoors to my desk ---
I will sit in my chair ---
I will look back
into the lost morning
in which I am moving, now,
like a swimmer,
so smoothly,
so peacefully,
I am almost the lily ---
almost the bird vanishing over the water
on its sleeves of night.