In Remembrance Mary Oliver

1935-2019

She died today.

She has merged
with the Silence
that she painted
in her poems,
that she inhaled
from the roots
and exhaled
into us.

We will
feel her
in the stones,
see her
in the moon
when we awaken
at night,
unmoored,
hear her
in the singing sea.

But first,
first
we must be winter.
We must be death.
We must become
intimate with
leavings
and the cold.

Then,
when the season turns
we will blossom again
into the world
with the whisper
if her wisdom.
“…I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open
and never close again.”