Mary Oliver Page

LSC - Montgomery Library
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 At Great Pond

By Mary Oliver 

At Great Pond

the sun, rising,

scrapes his orange breast

on the thick pines, 

and down tumble

a few orange feathers into

the dark water.

On the far shore

 a white bird is standing

like a white candle ---

or a man, in the distance,

in the clasp of some meditation --- 

while all around me the lilies

are breaking open again

from the black cave

of the night.

Later, I will consider

what I have seen ---

what it could signify ---

what words of adoration I might

make of it, and to do this

I will go indoors to my desk ---

I will sit in my chair ---

I will look back 

into the lost morning

in which I am moving, now,

like a swimmer,

so smoothly, 

so peacefully,

I am almost the lily ---

almost the bird vanishing over the water

on its sleeves of night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MLA Format and Copyright information for this poem:

Oliver, Mary. "At Great Pond." West Wind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997, 41.

 

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