At the River Clarion

1.
I don't know who God is exactly.
But I'll tell you this.
I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a
          water splashed stone
and all afternoon I listened to the voices
          of the river talking.
Whenever the water struck the stone it had
          something to say,
and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing
          under the water.
And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me
          what they were saying.
Said the river: I am part of holiness.
And I, too, said the stone. And I too, whispered
          the moss beneath the water.

I'd been to the river before, a few times.
Don't blame the river that nothing happened quickly.
You don't hear such voices in an hour or a day.
You don't hear them at all if selfhood has stuffed your ears.
And it's difficult to hear anything anyway, through
          all the traffic, and ambition.

2.
If God exists he isn't just butter and good luck.
He's also the tick that killed my wonderful dog Luke.
Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then
          keep on going.
Imagine how the lily (who may also be a part of God)
          would sing to you if it could sing, if
                    you would pause to hear it.
And how are you so certain anyway that it doesn't sing?

If God exists he isn't just churches and mathematics.
He's the forest, he's the desert.
He's the ice caps, that are dying.
He's the ghetto and the Museum of Fine Arts.
He's van Gogh and Allen Ginsberg and Robert
          Motherwell.
He's the many desperate hands, cleaning and preparing
          their weapons.
He's every one of us, potentially.
The leaf of grass, the genius, the politican,
          the poet.
And if this is true, isn't it something very important?

3.
Of course for each of us, there is the daily life.
Let us live it, gesture by gesture.
When we cut the ripe melon, should we not give it thanks?
And should we not thank the knife, also?
We do not live in a simple world.

4.
There was someone I love who grew old and ill.
One by one I watched the fires go out.
There was nothing I could do

except to remember
that we receive
and then we give back.

5.
My dog Luke lies in a grave in the forest,
          and she is given back.
But the river Clarion still flows
          from wherever it comes from
                    to wherever it has been told to go.
I pray for the desperate earth.
I pray for the desperate world.
I do the little each person can do, it isn't much.
Sometimes the river murmurs, sometimes it raves.

6.
Along its shores were, may I say, very intense
          cardinal flowers.
And trees, and birds that have wings to uphold them,
          for heaven's sakes--
the lucky ones: they have such deep natures,
          they are so happily obedient.
While I sit here in a house filled with books,
          ideas, doubts, hesitations.

7.
And still, pressed deep into my mind, the river
          keeps coming, touching me, passing by on its
                    long journey, its pale, infallible voice
                              singing.


--Mary Oliver, (1935- ) from Evidence: Poems, 2009