Gannets

Portrait of Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver 1935–2019

I am watching the white gannets blaze down into the water with the power of blunt spears and a stunning accuracy-- even though the sea is riled and boiling and gray with fog and the fish are nowhere to be seen, they fall, they explode into the water like white gloves, then they vanish, then they climb out again, from the cliff of the wave, like white flowers-- and still I think that nothing in this world moves but as a positive power-- even the fish, finning down into the current or collapsing in the red purse of the beak, are only interrupted from their own pursuit of whatever it is that fills their bellies-- and I say: life is real, and pain is real, but death is an imposter, and if I could be what once I was, like the wolf or the bear standing on the cold shore, I would still see it-- how the fish simply escape, this time, or how they slide down into a black fire for a moment, then rise from the water inseparable from the gannets' wings.

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