The “Nimble Frolic” of Terns

Common terns, Johanna Beach, Australia

Terns
by Mary Oliver, from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Don’t think just now of the trudging forward of thought,
but of the wing-drive of unquestioning affirmation.

It’s summer, you never saw such a blue sky,
and here they are, those white birds with quick wings,

sweeping over the waves,
chattering and plunging,

their thin beaks snapping, their hard eyes
happy as little nails.

The years to come — this is a promise —
will grant you ample time

to try the difficult steps in the empire of thought
where you seek for the shining proofs you think you must have.

But nothing you ever understand will be sweeter, or more binding,
than this deepest affinity between your eyes and the world.

The flock thickens
over the roiling, salt brightness.  Listen,

maybe such devotion, in which one holds the world
in the clasp of attention, isn’t the perfect prayer,

but it must be close, for the sorrow, whose name is doubt,
is thus subdued, and not through the weaponry of reason,

but of pure submission.  Tell me, what else
could beauty be for?  And now the tide

is at its very crown,
the white birds sprinkle down,

gathering up the loose silver, rising
as if weightless.  It isn’t instruction, or a parable.

It isn’t for any vanity or ambition
except for the one allowed, to stay alive.

It’s only a nimble frolic
over the waves.  And you find, for hours,

you cannot even remember the questions
that weigh so in your mind.

Tern in the sky over Johanna Beach

In flight, the terns bring to mind an Escher painting

Terns and shadows

Watercolor painting of tern

I really cannot recommend highly enough the new book, Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver.  Over and over, she writes so lyrically about recalling oneself to an attitude of attention to everything. Oliver says, “I think there isn’t anything in this world I don’t admire” (from “Hum”).

Like Rilke, she finds profound truths in nature’s offerings:

“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”
— Mary Oliver, from “It Was Early”