#179 This Is What Life Does (Marjorie Saiser)

En conversación con Mary Oliver.

(via)

THIS IS WHAT LIFE DOES

It gives you a glorious green childhood,

if you’re lucky, and I hope you were.

Mine was barefoot, it had bicycles

and swimming, it had some

dogma but I shucked that off.

This is what life does. For instance,

I stepped out my door this morning

before sunrise—some people are morning people,

some—my neighbors in their unlit houses—

sleep long honeyed sleep, apparently,

and this morning

a firefly was caught in the grass

a few feet from where I stood.

I couldn’t see the insect, but assumed

him by the light he gave off, and he or she

couldn’t apparently get airborne,

couldn’t make those arcs in the air,

those sweeps of light their kind

are known for. This one was stuck

low in the grass, the grass I couldn’t see.

Life is like that. You assume

so much, and the firefly

sparked in the grass for a few minutes,

blinked on the ground,

would have done so whether I watched it

or wasn’t there. I looked at stars without

knowing the names assigned to them.

The shapes of trees made an opening, 

a window. I saw sky

and several nameless ancient stars,

and suddenly it was as if something

important had shifted in a dream last night,

a dream I don’t remember the details of.

Something useful and helpful to me.

After I had been angry and felt so

disrespected again, shut down, stifled,

and yet I mean it

when I say I’m lucky. That is what

life does, gives me another morning,

fleeting reminders, small impermanent

flashes in the grass.