SWEET ANNIHILATION

There was a moment at the end of youth,
I sat upon a rock and watched the breeze.  
As seeds and tufts and other fancies flew,  
I read the writing of the earth preserved  
In granite by a withered dry creekbed  
And felt in me the want to take up ink.  
As termites scarified a heart in wood,  
The richness of wild minutiae took hold  
And laughter bellowed out my slack-jaw mouth.  
  
My life doubled in years but no more known,  
I came again to sacred stone and trees  
A little way from where I had grown up,  
A little way from love that I had lost,  
Sat still and watched the daytime moon pass near.  
I bushwhacked through my ego to a lake  
And with a snake and catfish swam carefree.  
   
That nature must destroy me now and then  
Is a lesson aging nicely, I think.

~

#MaryOliver