THE TERNS Mary Oliver p. 1990* ======================== The birds shrug off the slant air, they plunge into the sea and vanish under the glassy edges of the water, and then come back, as white as snow, shaking themselves, shaking the little silver fish, crying out in their own language, voices like rough bells-- it's wonderful and it happens whenever the tide starts its gushing journey back, every morning or afternoon. This is a poem about death, about the heart blanching in its folds of shadows because it knows someday it will be the fish and the wave and no longer itself-- it will be those white wings, flying in and out of the darkness but not knowing it-- this is a poem about loving the world and everything in it: the self, the perpetual muscle, the passage in and out, the bristling swing of the sea. ======== * from _House_of_Light_, 1990 (--Note: the original poem is center-justified.) ======== ========