Mary Oliver: "Mysteries, Yes"

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
    to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
    mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
    in allegiance with gravity
        while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
    never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
    scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
    who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
    "Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
 and bow their heads.



"Mysteries, Yes" by Mary Oliver, from Evidence: Poems. © Beacon Press, 2010.

Art credit: "Waterfall on the Trail of the Cedars in Glacier National Park, Montana," photograph taken in July, 2014, by curator Phyllis Cole-Dai.