What The Body Says

I'm in the mood for a little Mary Oliver poetry, indulge me:


What the Body Says

I was born here, and
I belong here, and
I will never leave.
The blue heron's

gray smoke will flow over me
for years
and the wind will decide
all directions

until I am safely and entirely
something else.
I am thinking of this
this winter morning

as I sit by the fire
and the fire in its red rack
keeps singing
its cracking song

of transformation.
Of course
I wonder about
the mystery

that is surely up there
in starry space
and how some part of me
will go there at last.

But I am talking now
of the way the body speaks,
and the wind, that keeps saying,
firmly, lovingly:

a little while and then this body
will be stone; then
it will be water; then
it will be air.

- Mary Oliver