"In Blackwater Woods" by Mary Olvier. Poetry Responses

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,

What I understand from this section is a heavenly feel; pillars of light remind me of birght lights streaking through breaks in clouds. Also, the bodies of the trees turning into pilliars gives a sense of nature, which everyone can connect too. Nature is also ever lasting.

are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fullfilment,

" . . are . . ." is reffering back to the trees. I beleive that fullfilment is connecting back to the heavenly feel I got before. It is beleived that once you reach heaven you have a strong feeling of fullfilment and purpose.

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what it's name is, is

nameless now.

This is where I feel the sensation of loss. "...every pond, no matter what it's name is, is nameless now." A pond is a pond and death is death and loss is loss. When you feel something as strong as death of a loved one, nothing else seems to matter. Things are what they are and nothing can change that.

Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.

Not to damper the already gloomy mood but I have lost a neice to murder and have felt what Oliver is talking about, and I am sure many people have as well. When a person looses someone close to them they can't find themselves in ". . . the black river of loss . . ." The other side is salvation, wanting to get away from the death and destruction. " . . . whose meaning none of us will never know." I have asked myself plenty of times, "why her?" but I have yet to get an answer, and I don't think I ever will.

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
                               -Mary Oliver

Mortal- something that does not live forever. Something you must cherish while you have i because one day it will no longer be. When that day comes to let it go, you must. If you don't, the life you have will be full of grief. Mary Oliver ends this poem strongly; giving three things of advice to live by. I believe if you to live by these three things that she learned in the river of loss, your life will reach its best.

Oliver explains loss, how things appear during loss, and how to get through loss. Although the vocabulary is easily understandable, some of the messages were hard to grasp. I had to read it multiple times and lock myself in my closet so I would have no distractions or interuptions. It is well written and speaks to everyone. I enjoyed it a lot!