STOPPING TIME WITH WINTER VISITORS

  

After spending my morning with a massive flock of snow geese in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, I returned home with a vague memory of having recently read a poem about these winter visitors.  Suspecting that it might be a poem by Mary Oliver, I looked through my volumes and found the poem below in Oliver's New and Selected Poems: Volume Two (Beacon Press, 2005).  It is such a privilege, as Oliver reminds us, "to love what is lovely, and will not last!"

                                                   Snow Geese

                                                 by Mary Oliver

                        Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!

                              What a task

                                 to ask

                        of anything, or anyone,

                        yet it is ours,

                           and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.

                        One fall day I heard

                          above me, and above the sting of the wind, a sound

                        I did not know, and my look shot upward; it was

                        a flock of snow geese, winging it

                           faster than the ones we usually see,

                        and, being the color of snow, catching the sun

                        so they were, in part at least, golden.  I

                        held my breath

                        as we do

                        sometimes

                        to stop time

                        when something wonderful 

                        has touched us

                        as with a match,

                        which is lit, and bright,

                        but does not hurt 

                        in the common way,

                        but delightfully, 

                        as if delight

                        were the most serious thing

                        you ever felt.

                        The geese

                        flew on,

                        I have never seen them again.

                        Maybe I will, someday, somewhere.

                        Maybe I won't.

                        It doesn't matter.

                        What matters 

                        is that, when I saw them,

                        I saw them

                        as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.

You can hear a reading of Mary Oliver's poem, "Snow Geese," by clicking on the following Youtube link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=zAxN9Zu6hfE