Something Lighter

Greetings from a sunny and blustery Scony. I'm currently in the basement of a hospital, blogging away between calls. (The silence from my pager goes appreciated!) After knocking off these two 12 hour shifts this weekend, I have two weekends in a row COMPLETELY TO MYSELF. Bliss! So this means that I will be calling Al, Rigden, Jamie, and some of my other long-lost friends in attempts to reunite and have some semblance of a social life. (Already begun by a movie and dinner with Nicki and Linds last night--can I mention how great it is to be getting paid again?!)

Below is a poem by Mary Oliver that I was introduced to this week, and it has quickly become a favorite.

IN BLACKWATER WOODS

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

May the autumn season move you in all of those necessary ways . . . . .