Shadows - Mary Oliver

[Larry Robinson]

Shadows

Everyone knows the great energies running amok cast
Terrible shadows, that each of the so-called 
Senseless acts has its thread looping
Back through the world and into a human heart.
And meanwhile
The gold-trimmed thunder
Wanders the sky; the river
May be filling the cellars of the sleeping town.
Cyclone, fire, and their merry cousins
Bring us to grief --- but these are the hours
With the old wooden-god faces;
We lift them to our shoulders like so many
Black coffins, we continue walking
Into the future. I don’t mean
There are no bodies in the river,
Or bones broken by the wind. I mean
Everyone who has heard the lethal train-roar
Of the tornado swears there was no mention ever 
Of any person, or reason --- I mean
The waters rise without any plot upon
History, or even geography. Whatever
Power of the earth rampages, we turn to it
Dazed but anonymous eyes; whatever
The name of the catastrophe, it is never
The opposite of love.

	- Mary Oliver