There are no salmon in the river pictured above. It's a creek that flows through Ames, Iowa. No salmon ever. Yet, somehow this Mary Oliver poem seems as if it was written specifically for me. Often I am confused about which is a better fit for me - power or powerlessness? It is hard for me to know if I am the dark force swallowing the light, or the light that has been consumed. Does it even matter?
Into the River
~ Mary Oliver
I have seen the great fee
leaping
into the river
and I havev seen moonlight
milky
along the long muzzle
and I have seen the body
of something
scaled and wonderful
slumped in the sudden fire of its mouth,
and I could not tell
which fit me
more comfortably, the power,
or the powerlessness;
neither would have me
entirely; I was divided,
consumed,
by sympathy,
pity, admiration.
After a while
it was done,
the fish had vanished, the bear
lumped away
to the green shore
and into the trees. And there there was only
this story.
It followed me home
and entered my house -
a difficult guest
with a single tune
which it hums all day and through the night -
slowly or briskly,
it doesn't matter,
it sounds like a river leaping and falling;
it sounds like a body
falling apart.
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