Mary Oliver lives with mystery . . .
You Are Standing at the Edge
of the Woods
by: Mary Oliver
You are standing at the edge of the woods
at twilight
when something begins
to sing, like a waterfall
pouring down
through the leaves. It is
the thrush.
And you are just
sinking down into your thoughts,
taking in
the sweetness of it--those chords,
those pursed twirls--when you hear
out of the same twilight
the wildest red outcry. It pitches itself
forward, it flails and scabs
all the surrounding space with such authority
you can't tell
whether it is crying out on the
scarp of victory, with its hooked foot
dabbed into some creature that now
with snapped spine
lies on the earth--or whether
it is such a struck body itself, saying
goodbye.
The thrush
is silent then, or perhaps
has flown away.
The dark grows darker.
The moon,
in its shining white blouse,
rises.
And whatever that wild cry was
it will always remain a mystery
you have to go home now and live with,
sometimes with the ease of music, and sometimes in silence,
for the rest of your life.
Oliver never has a problem living with mystery. So much of what she writes is about encountering the unexplained in the forest and simply accepting it without need for explanation or answer. She hears the thrush, which she identifies immediately, and then she hears something else, a wild red outcry, that leaves her poetically breathless and confounded.
I had a Mary Oliver moment like this tonight. My family and I had dinner with one of my best friends from high school who is visiting from Florida. Prior to meeting up with my friend, my wife and I decided to go for a walk because we had some time to kill. So, I drove to Lake Superior, and we walked along a breakwall jutting out into a sort of cove..
The evening was blue and sunny, and the waves sparked with light. As my wife and I headed back toward shore, we saw a bald eagle dive down and snatch a large fish from the water. The fish batted and squirmed in the eagle's talons for a few seconds. It was magnificent to see.
The eagle landed on the breakwall about 30 feet or so away from us. It started digging into its dinner with claws and beak while a particularly persistent seagull circled overhead, perhaps waiting for sloppy seconds. After a couple minutes of snacking, the eagle snatched up its meal and pounded back into flight for a minute or so. Then it landed on the breakwall again. The seagull kept circling and screaming, not venturing close.
Finally, the eagle snatched the fish in its talons and took off again. This time, it headed toward land. It ended up abandoning the fish carcass on the shore and perched near the top of a tree. It sat there, cocking its head, hunching its back, watching the small crowd of people gathering beneath it, like some member of the royal family posing for pictures.
It was a fully mature eagle, as its head was white as the North Pole. And it didn't seem skittish, despite all the humans stupidly standing below, taking pictures and chattering with excitement. That's what mystery does--it forces us to stop whatever we're doing and take note.
And I took note, after a long and tiring day of church and schoolwork.
Saint Marty imagines the eagle is still sitting in that tree right now, its crown glowing like a piece of misplaced moonlight in the dusky air.
