POETRY | Mary Oliver : Spring

Spring
-Mary Oliver

Somewhere
   a black bear
     has just risen from sleep
        and is staring

down the mountain.
   All night
     in the brisk and shallow restlessness
        of early spring

I think of her,
   her four black fists
     flicking the gravel,
        her tongue

like a red fire
   touching the grass,
     the cold water.
        There is only one question:

how to love this world.
   I think of her
     rising
        like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
   the silence
     of the trees.
        Whatever else

my life is
   with its poems
     and its music
        and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
   coming
     down the mountain,
        breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her—
   her white teeth,
     her wordlessness,
        her perfect love.