***other people's words

The Moths

There’s a kind of white moth,
I don’t know
what kind,
that glimmers
by mid-May in the forest,
just as the pink mocassin flowers
are rising.
If you notice anything,
it leads you to notice
more
and more.
And anyway
I was so full of energy.
I was always running around,
looking
at this and that.
If I stopped
the pain
was unbearable.
If I stopped and thought,
maybe
the world
can’t be saved,
the pain was unbearable.
Finally,
I noticed enough.
All around me in the forest
the white moths floated.
How long do they live,
fluttering
in and out of the shadows?
You aren’t much,
I said
one day to my reflection
in a green pond,
and grinned.
The wings of the moths catch the sunlight
and burn
so brightly.
At night,
sometimes,
they slip between the pink lobes
of the moccasin flowers and lie there until dawn,
motionless
in those dark halls of honey.
Mary Oliver


*** I just keep using other people's words lately. Mary Oliver is a brilliant poet, don't you think? Her poetry often comes to my mind when I am out taking my photos. "If you notice anything, it leads you to notice more and more." I don't have much to say lately except things I don't trust myself to say right now... this city gets on my very last nerve sometimes(if you haven't noticed), all the time lately....and rather than go into a raving lunatic rant which may reduce me to tears, I am trying to collect my thoughts coherently...so that when I explain it to you, you will be able to understand me better. I only hope the City of Nanaimo can understand me(us), too...before we all explode. I think I need to live far away from here...and never visit.