July 11: "At Black River," Good or Evil, Crocodile Poem

Mary Oliver meditates on the crocodile . . . 

At Black River

by:  Mary Oliver

All day

     its dark, slick bronze soaks

          in a mossy place,

               its teeth,

a multitude

     set

          for the comedy

               the never comes--

its tail

     knobbed and shiny,

          and with a heavy-weight's punch

               packed around the bone.

In beautiful Florida

     he is king

          of his own part

               of the black river,

and from his nap

     he will wake

          into the warm darkness

               to boom, and thrust forward,

paralyzing

     the swift, thin-waisted fish,

          or the bird

               in its frilled, white gown,

that has dipped down

     from the heaven of leaves

          one last time,

               to drink.

Don't think

     I'm not afraid.

          There is such an unleashing

               of horror.

Then I remember:

     death comes before

          the rolling away

               of the stone.

There is no judgement on the part of Mary Oliver here.  Nature really isn't good or evil, despite the serpent's guest appearances as Satan in the Bible.  Hurricanes are not vindictive.  Fires can rejuvenate a forest.  Sharks get hungry, as do wolves and lions.  The crocodile naps in the warm mud until it needs a snack or is threatened.  Then it bellows and barks and brings death to the black river.  But there is nothing inherently bad in the crocodile or hurricane or wolf.  It's just the way things are.

I had an unexpected evening off.  The library event that was supposed to occur tonight was cancelled.  So, I found myself at home quite early, eating dinner with my family and catching up on various writing projects I've been neglecting.  I ate some leftover July 4th bratwursts, watched The Shining with Jack Nicholson, and wrote a couple new poems.

I haven't been able to sit down just to write poetry in a long, long time.  It felt like I was feeding a part of myself that I didn't know was starving.  Two or three hours went by so quickly that I didn't even realize the sun had set.  It's almost like my inner poet crocodile had been sleeping in the mud of the black river, waiting for an egret to swoop down from the cypresses for a drink of water.  

I'm not sure the poems I wrote were any good, but I wrote them.  And it filled me with a joy I haven't experienced in a while.  I love what I do at the library, and, for the most part, I love teaching at the university.  However, sitting down to write poetry, that is my natural habitat.  My black river.

As I said at the beginning of this post, Oliver doesn't see anything she encounters or experiences in the world as good or evil.  Even loss and grief are gifts, along with crocodiles and cormorants.  Poetry is a gift.  Whether you believe it or not, everyone experiences poetry every day of their lives.  Those storm clouds are poetry.  Sky so blue it hurts the eyes--poetry.  The rabbit eating grass in the backyard--poetry.  Just because you don't sit down and write a poem about the rabbit doesn't make it NOT poetry.  

So, the next time a mosquito drains some of your blood or a crocodile lunges out of the lagoon or a toad hops on your foot, remember that all of it is poetry.  Hungry for your attention.

However, Saint Marty will set traps if he sees a mouse poem in his home.