When You Turn it Toward the Light

As I sit here this evening, in the quiet of my kitchen, a book of Mary Oliver's poetry in hand, I realize it's entirely possible to actually fall in love with a book. In this case, a slim volume of poetry, titled, A Thousand Mornings. May I tell you about the cover?  Besides the simple beauty in the juxtaposition of font used for her name, the title, and that one little divine word - poems - hanging just above the treetops in the darkly atmospheric photo gracing the cover, there's also this beautiful haze above the pond, as the rising sun comes shimmering through the trees. And the paper. The paper has the feeling of suede, yes, a sueded paper cover. It feels so good in my hands, soft and sensual. I've managed to leave a few fingerprints, visible when turned toward the light, but that's to be expected. A book should be lived in and know when it's deeply loved.

It's hard to decide which poem I should bring out in celebration of this perfect night, when the right book came to stay, filled with a thousand mornings of companionship, but this seems as good as any:

"Poem of the One World"

This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to

where everything
sooner or later
is a part of everything else

which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful myself.

~ Mary Oliver




Illustration by N.C.Wyeth