Blue Moon

Julia's birthday
for celebrating this year
once on a blue moon

Late July

Cool, foggy morning
moisture beading on the cars
lingering skunk scent.

Small miracles

Great year for bird-watching,
pairs of goldfinches as bright as the sunflowers they are feeding on;
a little downy woodpecker, laddered black, white and red,  in the lilac;
the Carolina wren families scolding us from the bushes and waking us at dawn
and this morning a tiny hummingbird buzzing about and alighting in the mulberry.

Sunday

Hot, hot, hot weather,
shut the doors and close windows,
the afternoon bakes.

Weather

Gray, lowering skies,
fits and starts of steamy storms
mid-July mornings.

Mother-in-law

Today remembrance -
Would be eighty-seven years,
But five years gone now.

Dawn

Rising light splashes,
flowing along maple trunks, 
across lawns and roofs.

Searching

Lost.leaves interleaved -
misplaced, found anew, replaced,
over and over.

Again

Thunder as storms pass;
evening after evening rains;
no time to dry out.

Relief

Seventy-seven
at seven AM - but there -
a breath of cool air.

Muggy morning

Gray, lowering sky
The air lies heavily moist
trees standing limply.

Enough ruckus

Blasts, pops, crackles, booms,
the lightning bugs paid no mind
under silent trees.

Away

Glorious morning
we share even while apart,
we are together

Remembrance

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting 

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

published by Atlantic Monthly Press

© Mary Oliver

July

Sweet dreams, full moon, new
month, mid-year glowing fireflies,
floating pink blossoms.