The Poet: Mary Oliver, "What Is There Beyond Knowing?"

"What Is There Beyond Knowing?"

 

"What is there beyond knowing that keeps calling to me? 

I can't turn in any direction but it's there. 

I don't mean the leaves' grip and shine

 or even the thrush's silk song, 

but the far-off fires, for example, of the stars,

 heaven's slowly turning theater of light, 

or the wind playful with its breath;
or time that's always rushing forward, 

or standing still in the same- what shall I say- moment.
What I know I could put into a pack
as if it were bread and cheese,

and carry it on one shoulder,
important and honorable, but so small!
While everything else continues, unexplained and unexplainable.

 How wonderful it is to follow a thought quietly to its logical end.
I have done this a few times.
But mostly I just stand in the dark field,
in the middle of the world, breathing in and out.

 Life so far doesn't have any other name
but breath and light, wind and rain.
If there's a temple, I haven't found it yet.
I simply go on drifting, in the heaven of the grass
and the weeds."

- Mary Oliver,

"Swan- Poems and Prose Poems"

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