Now the woods are empty,
the ponds shine like blind eyes,
the wind is shouldering against
the black, wet
bones of the trees.
In a house down the road,
as though I had never seen these things-
leaves, the loose tons of water,
a bird with an eye like a full moon
deciding not to die, after all -
I sit out the long afternoons
drinking and talking;
I gather wood, kindling, paper; I make fire
after fire after fire.
Mary Oliver, from "Poem for the Blue Heron" (1983)
