A poem for today

This hummingbird comes and visits me almost every day.

Portrait of hummingbird by Rhonda Gerhard.

Here is a poem by Mary Oliver. Find the magic in your day.

Long Afternoon At The Edge Of Little Sister Pond

by Mary Oliver

As for life,

I’m humbled,

I’m without words

sufficient to say

how it has been hard as flint,

and soft as a spring pond,

both of these

and over and over,

and long pale afternoons besides,

and so many mysteries

beautiful as eggs in a nest,

still unhatched

though warm and watched over

by something I have never seen –

a tree angel, perhaps,

or a ghost of holiness.

Every day I walk out into the world

to be dazzled,

then to be reflective.

It suffices, it is all comfort –

along with human love,

dog love, water love, little-serpent love,

sunburst love, or love for that smallest of birds

flying among the scarlet flowers.

There is hardly time to think about

stopping, and lying down at last

to the long afterlife,

to the tenderness

yet to come, when

time will brim over the singular pond, and become forever,

and we will pretend to melt away into the leaves.

As for death,

I can’t wait to be the hummingbird,

can you?