I am a body schooling,
a ball of fish, flashing
and many, in these early days
of feeling, of love.

When I learned,
hours ago, of fish songs
that swell like birdsong
in the morning,

how they foghorn or buzz
for food, or mates
or space, I thought,
now aren’t I a humming thing?

Yes, you say,
a body of oceans
and marvelous.

And the sea anemone in me,
              growing on the wreckage
of an old ship—

              can they grow that way,
              I wonder, on an ending—

                          Still this bright and tentacled
anthozoan polyp,
              which reaches and filters
                                                            whatever it needs
                          from this strong current,
              and the current too that carries
                                                            the sea cucumbers,
              the rough mammals,
                          the life, both vertebrate
                                                            and invertebrate,
even the batfish,
                          the black jewfish,
              and the terapontid,

it all swells and breaks in me
like a chorus at dusk.

            after Mary Oliver

Here is the meat
and fat and bone
of the day. The smoke
too for the god of recognition.

A love offering,
where love is also
grief and mourning,
the business of waking
and moving in a body far
away from you,
sweet friend.

Where waking
and moving mean
crying or not crying,
but always breathing.

Mark how the light
bends through the dry
air, like breath,
at the end of the day.

Mark the chirbling of the bird
outside my window.

Mark the day we will see
one another again,
and what light there will be,
what song.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

"Good-bye," I said to my conscience—
    "Good-bye for aye and aye,"
And I put her hands off harshly,
    And turned my face away;
And conscience smitten sorely
    Returned not from that day.

But a time came when my spirit
    Grew weary of its pace;
And I cried: "Come back, my conscience;
    I long to see thy face."
But conscience cried: "I cannot;
    Remorse sits in my place."