Mary Oliver
There is, all around us,
this country
of original fire.
You know what I mean.
The sky, after all, stops at nothing, so something
has to be holding
our bodies
in its rich and timeless stables or else
we would fly away.
Off Stellwagen,
off the Cape,
the humpbacks rise. Carrying their tonnage
of barnacles and joy
they leap through the water, they nuzzle back under it
like children at play.
They sing, too.
And not for any reason
you can't imagine.
Three of them rise to the surface
near the bow of the boat,
then dive deeply,
their huge scarred flukes
tip to the air.
We wait, not knowing
just where it will happen; then
suddenly—the silver of their sides
as they swim by underneath the boat,
their long white fins
after the other,
floating
in the dark like wings.
The humpbacks sing
wildly into the empty sky.
Who knows what we would do
if we could sing even half as well.
What would we do with our mouths
if we could sing just that well.
What would we do with the gift of knowing
that we have once again survived?