An Imaginary Visit With Mary Oliver
R. Nikolas Macioci

If I could talk to her, words would stumble,
my chest shivery with tension. She's
shown me skies full of rain, webs, and winter nights.
What would I say to someone who's kept me
up late, and sometimes all night, reading about
John Chapman, grapes, and blue heron? Thank you
is not enough for what she has created.
I say that without her poems, I'd be in a place
where all trees are a broken marriage of mind
and place, the essence of nature unpreserved,
the glow of autumn dull as unpolished fruit.
When I'm standing at Palm Pond, I wonder
about Little Sister Pond and Great Pond,
and how I can see mine now through her.
Somehow, my hand is in hers, and she leads me
to a clearing where I say anything or nothing
and am without tears for who I am. She would
understand a lonely man or an animal,
and I understand how good and privileged
it is to be part of a world with her answers.