I got a note from my cousin, Brenda. She and her grandchildren were doing a butterfly project. When they were ready to release them they noticed one had deformed wings so they gave her an extra week before they let her go. When they did release her she struggled to get about 12 feet off the ground and a bird swooped down and got her in midair. "There you go," was Brenda's response. It reminded me of this poem in which Mary Oliver recognizes the beauty and the irony in the harsh reality of nature, yet she is conflicted by it. There is a certain inevitability that all aspects of life end up in death or loss, or I am missing the more positive message?
Night and the River
Mary Oliver
I
have seen the great feet
leaping
into the river
and
I have seen moonlight
milky
along the long muzzle
and
I have seen the body
of
something scaled and wonderful
slumped
in the sudden fire of it mouth,
and
I could not tell which fit me
more
comfortably, the power,
or
the powerlessness:
neither
would have me
entirely;
I was divided,
consumed,
by sympathy,
pity,
admiration.
After
a while it was done,
the
fish had vanished, the bear
lumped
away
to
the green shore
and
into the trees. And then there was only
this
story.
It
followed me home
and
entered my house-
a
difficult guest
with
a single tune
which
it hums all day and through the night-
slowly,
or briskly,
it
doesn't matter,
it
sounds like a river leaping and falling; it sounds like a body
falling
apart
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