for he who has been thinking much of trees (and for me)

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation.
Whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal,
and hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

— Mary Oliver


I'm so glad I save old letters. Just found this written on the back of an envelope given to me by a friend a long time ago. It was tucked into a pile of letters tied with ribbon alongside a birthday card from my Nini, a sweet confection received only a few years back that struck me at the time as unexpectedly and delightfully effusive. It's peppered with words like "forever" and "always" and "still" and it concludes: "It isn't any wonder that a thousand years from now, somewhere, somehow I'll still be loving you."