So long as you don’t mind a little dying…

The Kingfisher
Mary Oliver

The kingfisher rises out of the black wave
Like a blue flower, in his beak
he carries a single silver leaf. I think this is
The prettiest world— so long as you don’t mind
a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life
that doesn’t have its splash of happiness?
There are more fish than there are leaves
on a thousand trees, and anyway the kingfisher
wasn’t born to think about it, or anything else.
When the wave snaps shut over his blue head, the water
remains water— hunger is the only story
he has ever heard in his life that he could believe.
I don’t say that he’s right. Neither
do I say he’s wrong. Religiously he swallows the silver leaf
with its broken red river, and with a rough and easy cry
I couldn’t rouse out of my thoughtful body
if my life depended on it, he swings back
over the bright sea to do the same thing, to do it
(as I long to do something, anything) perfectly.

~

This poem I read last night fit (for me) so well with Jen’s post today.

Thank you, Jen, for that story. I laughed so hard I cried! And I’m sorry that series of moments was such a challenge, but I bet you earned the top-anything brag from it. :)

This is the line from that poem describes things perfectly for me just now:

I think this is
The prettiest world— so long as you don’t mind
a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life
that doesn’t have its splash of happiness?

Blessings on your day! I hope your splash of happiness is flood today. ;)

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