Raptured Heart
for Mary Oliver

Phillip Brown

I like to picture her this way: a pen
in hand, two well-worn boots, a raptured heart,
as through the woods she roams with dog or M.,
a few spare lines wherein her poems start
to blossom softly like a prayer—a song
for owls, herons, foxes, ponds, the sea
and all its foreign gifts, a simple throng
of lily blooms. For all these wonders she
gives thanks—a blessing from her grateful hand—
in love, she praises quick and graceful things.
Content to lie down in this wild land,
become the grass, the night, the sparrow wing,
        her gift is this: a field of word and line,
        traversed by both her awe-struck heart and mine.