I am watching the white gannets <br />blaze down into the water <br />with the power of blunt spears <br />and a stunning accuracy-- <br />even though the sea is riled and boiling <br />and gray with fog <br />and the fish <br />are nowhere to be seen, <br />they fall, they explode into the water <br />like white gloves, <br />then they vanish, <br />then they climb out again, <br />from the cliff of the wave, <br />like white flowers-- <br />and still I think <br />that nothing in this world moves <br />but as a positive power-- <br />even the fish, finning down into the current <br />or collapsing <br />in the red purse of the beak, <br />are only interrupted from their own pursuit <br />of whatever it is <br />that fills their bellies-- <br />and I say: <br />life is real, <br />and pain is real, <br />but death is an imposter, <br />and if I could be what once I was, <br />like the wolf or the bear <br />standing on the cold shore, <br />I would still see it-- <br />how the fish simply escape, this time, <br />or how they slide down into a black fire <br />for a moment, <br />then rise from the water inseparable <br />from the gannets' wings.<br /><br />Mary Oliver<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/gannets/
