Tribute to Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

She reminds you gently of your place
inside the world’s tenderness.
Her flight like that of the butterfly

Yes, this butterfly, that landed nearly
in your lap in this quiet space
carved from your crowded day,
beating her urgent translucent wings
across this meadow
from purple coneflowers to creeping phlox,
sipping nectar
where the wingless or impatient
would never find it,
then disappears down a dusty path

lost to the tiny range of your human eye,
but not the expansiveness
of your human heart.