The Uses Of Sorrow (In my sleep I dreamed this poem) Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this… - Mary Oliver

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

Sleep comes its little while. Then I wake in the valley of midnight or three a.m. to the first fragrances of spring which is coming, all by itself, no matter what. My heart says, what you thought you have you do not have. My body says, will this pounding ever stop? My heart says: there, there, be a good student. My body says: let me up and out, I want to fondle those soft white flowers, open in the night.

"All I know
is that "thank you" should appear somewhere.

So just in case
I can't find
the perfect place-
"Thank you, thank you.

I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.