Yes, thank you.

Our prompt was to write a poem in the spirit of Mary Oliver

I set out from my house on foot, down the block across High Street, jaywalking just after the bus goes by with its familiar shudder, down to the woods along the river. A white sycamore tree stands, the monument at the entrance to the museum of nature. I am home. Yes, thank you.

In the woods, it is muddy. The water is high. Mallard ducks swim in pairs where normally it is dry, one shimmering green head and one soft brown one, bobbing comically, quacking softly. I laugh. Yes, thank you.

I exit the woods and wander through the prairie, goldenrod taller than me opens like popcorn at the top. I am small and in my place. Yes, thank you.

Through the prairie and over to the retention pond, algae along the top. There, a great blue heron stands, tall and erect, motionless until he strikes, snapping up a fish with lightning, mechanical precision. I am awed. Yes, thank you.

Up the hill toward our house, the long way home, under a tunnel of crabapples. Their sweet, cloying flowers are long gone, their fruit smashed on the ground, rotted. The nature of life. Bloom, fall, rot, bloom again. I bloom again in a new life. Yes, thank you.