Sleeping In The Forest by
Mary Oliver
I thought the earth
remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly,
arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white
fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they
floated
light as moths among the
branches
of the perfect trees.
All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and
the birds
who do their work in the
darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in
water, grappling
with a luminous doom.
By morning
I had vanished at least a
dozen times
into something better.