Walking to Oak Pond by Mary Oliver

Walking to Oak-Head Pond, and Thinking of the Ponds I Will Visit in the Next Days and Weeks


by Mary Oliver


What is so utterly invisible
as tomorrow?
Not love,
not the wind,


not the inside of stone.
Not anything.
And yet, how often I'm fooled-
I'm wading along


in the sunlight-
and I'm sure I can see the fields and the ponds shining
days ahead-
I can see the light spilling


like a shower of meteors
into next week's trees,
and I plan to be there soon-
and, so far, I am


just that lucky,
my legs splashing
over the edge of darkness,
my heart on fire.


I don't know where
such certainty comes from-
the brave flesh
or the theater of the mind-


but if I had to guess
I would say that only
what the soul is supposed to be
could send us forth


with such cheer
as even the leaf must wear
as it unfurls
its fragrant body, and shines


against the hard possibility of stoppage-
which, day after day,
before such brisk, corpuscular belief,
shudders, and gives way.


"Walking to Oak-Head Pond, and Thinking of the Ponds I Will Visit in the Next Days and Weeks" by Mary Oliver, from What Do We Know.