A Mary Oliver Poem

This summer, a tribute to some of my favorite poems and poets.

from Mary Oliver’s poetry collection Devotions, an excerpt from “From the Book of Time”:

“Columbine,” photo: Nancy Bo Flood

I rose this morning early as usual, and went to my desk.
But it’s spring,

and the thrush is in the woods,
somewhere in the twirled branches, and he is singing…

I am touching a few leaves.
I am noticing the way the yellow butterflies
move together, in a twinkling cloud, over the field.

And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening
is the real work.

Maybe the world, without us,
is the real poem.