The Kingfisher


The kingfisher rises out of the black wave
like a blue flower, in his beak he carries
a silver leaf. I think this is the prettiest world
so long as you don't mind a little dying,
how could there be a day in your whole life
that doesn't have its splash of happiness?

There are more fish than there are leaves
on a thousand trees, and anyway the kingfisher
wasn't born to think about it, or anything else.

When the wave snaps shut over his blue head, the water
remains water--hunger is the only story
he has ever heard in his life that he could believe.

I don't say he's right.
Neither do I say he's wrong.

Religiously he swallows the silver leaf
with its broken red river, and with a rough
and easy cry
I couldn't rouse out of my thoughtful body
if my life depended on it, he swings back
over the bright sea to do the same thing, to do it
(as I long to do something, anything) perfectly.


~ Mary Oliver ~

(House of Light)

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