"...When I lived by Little Sister Pond, 

I dreamed I was the feather of the blue heron

left on the shore; 

I was the pond lily, my root delicate as an artery, 

my face like a star, 

my happiness brimming.

Later I was the footsteps that follow the sea.

I knew the tides, I knew the ingredients of the wrack.

I knew the eider, the red-thorated loon

with his uplifted beak and his smart eye.

I felt I was the tip of the wave, 

the pearl of water on the eider's glossy back.

No, there's no escaping, nor would I want to escape

this outgo, this foot-loosening, this solution

to gravity and a single shape..."

From Mary Oliver's "Life Story," in A Thousand Mornings. (New York: Penguin Books, 2012): 71.

Farm Pond in Early July

Nikon FE2, 50mm