Poetry Thursday ... when the time comes to let go ...

This week's totally optional idea on Poetry Thursday is to write about or share a poem about time, however we interpret that concept. I am being lazy this week (actually, I am being overwhelmed with work projects this week) so I am posting someone else's poem instead of writing my own.

I was first introduced to Mary Oliver's poetry during a massage session. My massage therapist read me the poem, Wild Geese ... and I found myself weeping -- tears of both sadness and acceptance for my own life's journey -- on her massage table.

That was over 20 years ago. The next year, I was asked to read something at a friend's memorial service and I chose Oliver's poem, In Blackwater Woods. Since then I have grown to admire and respect Mary Oliver -- to love her poetry and to wish that she would be honored as the Poet Laureate of the U.S. someday. I can think of no one I would rather see honored that way.

So, today I want to share one of those first two poems of Oliver's -- the one that I felt ) and still feel) most connected to, In Blackwater Woods.

I have made several mixed media collages specifically to illustrate this poem. I hope you enjoy reading this poem in this context, even if you have read it hundreds of times before ... or if you have never come across Oliver's poems, I am honored to introduce you to her work:


Dusk at Blackwater Wood, originally uploaded by MontanaRaven.

In Blackwater Woods

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.

Poem by Mary Oliver

for more about Mary Oliver and a few of her poems, check out the page about her at the Academy of American Poets.

Check out other Poetry Thursday posts about TIME, by clicking this button: