NATURE
            Mary Oliver
                p. 1990*
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All night
  in and out the slippery shadows
    the owl hunted,
      the beads of blood
      
scarcely dry on the hooked beak before
  hunger again seized him
    and he fell, snipping
      the life from some plush breather,

and floated away
  into the crooked branches
    of the trees, that all night
      when on lapping

the sunken rain, and growing,
  bristling life
    spreading through all their branches
      as one by one

they tossed the white moon upward
  on its slow way
    to another morning
      in which nothing new

would ever happen,
  which is the true gift of nature,
    which is the reason
      we love it.

Forgive me.
  For hours I had tried to sleep
    and failed;
      restless and wild,

I could settle on nothing
  and fell, in envy
    of the things of darkness
      following their sleepy course--

the root and branch, the bloodied beak--
  even the screams from the cold leaves
    were as red songs that rose and fell
      in their accustomed place.


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* from _House_of_Light_, 1990

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