still and all

in a private collection

sold through Edgewater Gallery

Kayaking on Lake Champlain, when the water is still
and the grasses gleam: what a privilege.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled —
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing —
that the light is everything — that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

— Mary Oliver
from “The Ponds”