In Memory of Dori Anderson
1938-2008

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day – April 3, 2008

Prose Poem by the Empress of American Poetry – MARY OLIVER

A Settlement

Look, it’s spring. And last year’s loose dust has turned

into this soft willingness. The wind-flowers have come

up trembling, slowly the brackens are up-lifting their

curvaceous and pale bodies. The thrushes have come

home, none less than filled with mystery, sorrow,

happiness, music, ambition.

And I am walking out into all of this with nowhere to

go and no task undertaken but to turn the pages of

this beautiful world over and over, in the world of my

mind.

***

Therefore, dark past,

I’m about to do it.

I’m about to forgive you

for everything.

Ukiah Library's Poem of the day for National Poetry Month- April 3rd

White-Eyes

In winter
all the singing is in
the tops of the trees
where the wind-bird

with its white eyes
shoves and pushes
among the branches.
Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,
but he's restless—
he has an idea,
and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings
as long as he stays awake
But his big, round music, after all,
is too breathy to last.

So, it's over.
In the pine-crown
he makes his nest,
he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird,
I only imagine his glittering beak
tucked in a white wing
while the clouds—

which he has summoned
from the north—
which he has taught
to be mild, and silent—

thicken, and begin to fall
into the world below
like stars, or the feathers
of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,
that is asleep now, and silent—
that has turned itself
into snow.