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
	brings 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 truth.

	- Mary Oliver