Blind and rough peace, finally (Mary Oliver)

 For all they said, 

   I could not see the waterfall 

      until I came and saw the water falling, 

         its lace legs and its womanly arms sheeting down, 

while something howled like thunder, 

   over the rocks 

      all day and all night – 

         unspooling 

like ribbons made of snow 

   or god’s white hair. 

      At any distance 

         it fell without a break or seam, and slowly, a simple 

preponderance – 

   a fall of flowers – and truly it seemed 

      surprised by the unexpected kindness of the air and 

         lighthearted to be 

flying at last. 

   Gravity is a fact everybody 

      knows about. 

         It is always underfoot, 

like a summons, 

   gravel-backed and mossy, 

      in every beetled basin – 

         and imagination – 

that striver, 

   that third eye – 

      can do a lot but 

         hardly everything.  The white, scrolled 

wings of tumbling water 

   I never could have 

      imagined.  And maybe there will be, 

         after all, 

some slack and perfectly balanced 

   blind and rough peace, finally, 

      in the deep and green and utterly motionless pools after all that 

         falling? 

--Mary Oliver, The Waterfall, 
in Collected Poems

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