Mary Oliver

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The Waterfall
for May Swenson

For all they said,
  I could not see the waterfall
    until I came and saw the water falling,
      its lace legs and its womanly arms sheeting down,
 
while something howled like thunder,
  over the rocks,
    all day and all night—
      unspooling
 
like ribbons made of snow,
  or god's white hair.
    At any distance
      it fell without a break or seam, and slowly, a simple
 
preponderance—
  a fall of flowers—and truly it seemed
    surprised by the unexpected kindness of the air and
      light-hearted to be
  
flying at last.
  Gravity is a fact everybody
    knows about.
      It is always underfoot,
  
like a summons,
  gravel-backed and mossy,
    in every beetled basin—
      and imagination—
  
that striver,
  that third eye—
    can do a lot but
      hardly everything. The white, scrolled
  
wings of the tumbling water
  I never could have
    imagined. And maybe there will be,
      after all,
  
some slack and perfectly balanced
  blind and rough peace, finally,
    in the deep and green and utterly motionless pools after all that
      falling?
  

Mary Oliver