In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

 into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this:  the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things: 

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let go,

to let go.

—Mary Oliver

            This poem brought on a lot of imagery for me while I was reading it. The first four stanza, on a funny note, reminded me of playing golf because some days, the trees seem to take on a life of their own and jump out of their spot in order of impede my next shot or make my ball ricochet back towards me. A more serious image I got while reading this poem was of walking through a forest in the fall, watching the sky be filled with falling leaves, crunching the fallen leaves on the ground, and hearing the calm and serenity of the nature around.

            However, the fifth through seventh stanzas had a change of imagery to one of blackened trees and desolate space. This shift brings to mind the fictional phoenix bird that will burst into flames, only to be reborn from the ashes. The forest will regrow and blossom into a beautiful serenity again with the changing and rebirth of the seasons; much like in life, things are always changing from good to bad and bad to good with the passing of time.

            In the last stanzas are my favorite lines of the poem: the three things we must be able to do to live in this world. “…to love what is mortal,” because nothing lasts forever and we must cherish what we have before it shall perish; “…to hold it against your bones knowing your life depends on it,” because YOLO and because when we know our lives depend on something, we understand and appreciate the true value of it; and lastly, “…when the time comes to let it go, to let it go,” when I first read this line, I thought “to let it go” was repeated for emphasis but as I reread that line, I discovered that it was phrased differently than I had originally thought and it was really impactful. It is not saying that when the time comes, to let it go, it’s saying that when the time comes to let something go, to let it go; this means to me that we let it go when we need to let it go because it is our own decision, not time’s or society’s decision. I’m not absolutely certain what the “it” is in this poem but I like to think that the “it” is death (life) and/or something we hold near and dear to our hearts.

            Overall, this poem had a tone of acceptance and serenity; the purpose would probably be to see the beauty in life and I think this poem executes that very well.