You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But, listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without do… - Mary Oliver

I want to write something
so simply
about love
or about pain
that even
as you are reading
you feel it
and as you read
you keep feeling it
and though it be my story
it will be common,
though it be singular
it will be known to you
so that by the end
you will think — no, you will realize — that it was all the while
yourself arranging the words,
that it was all the time
words that you yourself,
out of your heart
had been saying.

The language of the poem is the language of particulars.

Therefore, dark past,
I’m about to do it.
I’m about to forgive you

for everything.