Words for Today

 

What the Body Says

I was born here, and

I belong here, and

I will never leave.

The blue heron's

gray smoke will flow over me

for years

and the wind will decide

all directions

until I am safely and entirely

something else.

I am thinking of this

this winter morning

as I sit by the fire

and the fire in it's red rack

keeps singing

its crackling song

of transformation.

Of course

I wonder about

the mystery

that is surely up there

in starry space

and how some part of me

will go there at last.

But I am talking now

of the way the body speaks,

and the wind, that keeps saying,

firmly, lovingly:

a little while and then this body will be stone; then

it will be water; then

it will be air.

-Mary Oliver