Mary Oliver's "The Return"
                                   1.
When I went back to the sea
Neither had it gone away.
All its musics were safe and sound; the circling gulls
were still a commonplace, the fluted shells
more beautiful than money –
oh, yes, more beautiful than money!
stood in the salted waves with their soft, untroubled faces
lie back now on your prairies of blackness your fields of sunlight
I do not want to be frisky, and theatrical.
I do not want to go forward in the parade of names.
I do not want to be diligent or necessary or in any way
From my mouth to God’s ear, I swear it; I want only
To wander around in the fields like a little reed bird.
                 3.
Two eggs rolled from the goose nest
down to the water and halfway into the water.
I went there softly, and gathered them
and put them back into the nest
of the goose who bit me hard with her
lovely black beak with the pink
and beat my arms with her
and beat my face with her
She hissed horribly, wanting me to be frightened.
those cold white eggs would never hatch,
the birds would forget, soon, and go back,
to the light-soaked pond,
what good is remembering?
But I wasn’t frightened.
Sometimes I really believe it, that I am going to
When I found the seal pup alone on the far beach,
not sleeping but looking all around, I didn’t
reason it out, for reason would have sent me away,
went close but not too close, and lay down on the sand
with my back toward it, and
pretty soon it rolled over, and rolled over
until the length of its body lay along
the length of my body, and so we touched, and maybe
our breathing together was some kind of heavenly conversation
in God’s delicate and magnifying language, the one
we don’t dare speak out loud,
Rumi the poet was a scholar also.
But Shams, his friend, was an angel.
By which I don’t mean anything patient and sweet,
When I read how he took Rumi’s books and threw them
I shouted for joy. Time to live now,
casually toward the road, Rumi following, the books
floating and sinking among the screeching ducks,
oh, beautiful book-eating pond!
The country of the mockingbird is where I now want to be,
The days when the snow-white swans might pass over the dunes
are the days I want to eat now, slowly and carefully
and with gratitude. Thank you.
 The hours fresh and tidal are the hours I want to hold
in the palm of my hand, thank you, yes.
The gate I want to open now is the one that leads into
the flower-bed of my mind, thank you, yes.
Every day the slow, fresh wind, thank you, yes.
The wing, in the dark, that touches me.
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