Mary Oliver

a day late
marking the fall of the great poet
Mary Oliver
a day of petty bravery facing minor demons
whose faces I'm so sick of
and who disintegrate
in the light of her divine words
which never imbue
but reflect
the glory and ordinary joy
of an exquisite world.

She draws gratitude out of me
like an instinct
and points
at the moon shining in everything.

I feel that same strange, true
loving sadness
the she shared in her work
at the news of her death,
humbled
emboldened
again
to live my belonging
together with everything.

I think she would have understood a minor poet
drawing lines in the earth
tracing her sound
with a stick
from her great tree