The fields and ponds shining days ahead (Sunday's Poem, 30)

Walking to Oak-Head Pond, and
Thinking of the Ponds I Will Visit in the
Next Days and Weeks

Mary Oliver

What is so utterly invisible
as tomorrow?
Not love,
not the wind,

not the inside of stone.
Not anything.
And yet, how often I'm fooled-
I'm wading along

in the sunlight-
and I'm sure I can see the fields and the ponds shining
days ahead-
I can see the light spilling

like a shower of meteors
into next week's trees,
and I plan to be there soon-
and, so far, I am

just that lucky,
my legs splashing
over the edge of darkness,
my heart on fire.

I don't know where
such certainty comes from-
the brave flesh
or the theater of the mind-

but if I had to guess
I would say that only
what the soul is supposed to be
could send us forth

with such cheer
as even the leaf must wear
as it unfurls
its fragrant body, and shines

against the hard possibility of stoppage-
which, day after day,
before such brisk, corpuscular belief,
shudders, and gives way.
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I like that the "hard possibility of stoppage" gives way, day after day, before the "brisk, corpuscular belief" that we will keep moving forward in time, that there will be days and weeks and months in which, in the future, we will visit other ponds and see, at last, the invisibility of tomorrow.

I also like that this poem went along with the picture that I took, yesterday, of those lily pads in a pond on the UW-Madison campus.

And I like that the theme of this poem kind of fits in with the theme of yesterday's quote of the day.

And, finally, I just like this poem. Nice work, poem!