Poem: “The Teachers”

Owl in the black morning,

    mockingbird in the burning

slants of the sunny afternoon

    declare so simply

–

to the world

     everything I have tried but still

    haven’t been able

     to put into words,

–

so I do not go

far from that school

     with its star-bright

      or blue ceiling,

–

and I listen to those old teachers,

    and others too —

    the wind in the trees

   or the water waves —

–

for they are what lead me

    from the dryness of self

     where I labor

      with the mind-steps of language.

–

Lonely, as we all are

    in the singular,

     I listen

   to the shouted exuberances

–

of the mockingbird and the owl,

     the waves, and the wind,

and then, like peace after perfect speech,

      such stillness.

“The Teachers”  by Mary Oliver. Copyright © by Mary Oliver. Published with permission of the author.