Something <br />just now <br />moved through my heart <br />like the thinnest of blades <br />as that red-tail pumped <br />once with its great wings <br />and flew above the gray, cracked <br />rock wall. <br />It wasn't <br />about the bird, it was <br />something about the way <br />stone stays <br />mute and put, whatever <br />goes flashing by. <br />Sometimes, <br />when I sit like this, quiet, <br />all the dreams of my blood <br />and all outrageous divisions of time <br />seem ready to leave, <br />to slide out of me. <br />Then, I imagine, I would never move. <br />By now <br />the hawk has flown five miles <br />at least, <br />dazzling whoever else has happened <br />to look up. <br />I was dazzled. But that <br />wasn't the knife. <br />It was the sheer, dense wall <br />of blind stone <br />without a pinch of hope <br />or a single unfulfilled desire <br />sponging up and reflecting, <br />so brilliantly, <br />as it has for centuries, <br />the sun's fire.<br /><br />Mary Oliver<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/knife/
