PRAISE
            Mary Oliver
                p. 1990*
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Knee-deep
  in the ferns
    springing up
      at the edge of the whistling swamp,

I watch the owl
  with its satisfied,
    heart-shaped face
      as it flies over the water--

back and forth--
  as it flutters down
    like a hellish moth
      wherever the reeds twitch--
      
whenever, in the muddy cover,
  some little life sighs
    before it slides into moonlight
      and becomes a shadow.

In the distance,
  awful and infallible,
    the old swamp belches.
      Of course

It stabs my heart
  whenever something cries out
    like a teardrop.
      But isn't it wonderful,

What is happening
  in the branches of the pines:
    the owl's young,
      dressed in snowflakes,

are starting to fatten--
  they beat their muscular wings,
    they dream of flying
      for another million years

over the water,
  over the ferns,
    over the world's roughage
      as it bleeds and deepens.


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* from _House_of_Light_, 1990

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