The sun just touched the morning;

The morning, happy thing,

supposed that he had come to dwell,

And life would be all spring.

~Emily Dickinson

find your way in the fog and the damp and the tiny crocuses…

inquiry for today~ when will you notice the change in light?

oh the giddiness of lightness

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring

down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring

I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue

like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:

how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else

my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her —
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.

~Mary Oliver