Lilies

·

I have been thinking

about living

like the lilies

that blow in the fields.

·

They rise and fall

in the wedge of the wind,

and have no shelter

from the tongues of the cattle,

·

and have no closets or cupboards,

and have no legs.

Still I would like to be

as wonderful

·

as that old idea.

But if I were a lily

I think I would wait all day

for the green face

·

of the hummingbird

to touch me.

What I mean is,

could I forget myself

·

even in those feathery fields?

When van Gogh

preached to the poor

of course he wanted to save someone—

·

most of all himself.

He wasn’t a lily,

and wandering through the bright fields

only gave him more ideas

·

it would take all his life to solve.

I think I will always be lonely

in this world, where the cattle

graze like a black and white river—

·

where the ravishing lilies

melt, without protest, on their tongues—

where the hummingbird, whenever there is a fuss,

just rises and floats away.

—Mary Oliver