Oranges

by Mary Oliver


Cut one, the lace of acid
rushes out, spills over your hands.
You lick them, manners don't come into it.
Orange -- the first word you have heard that day --

enters your mind. Everybody then
does what he or she wants -- breakfast is casual.
Slices, quarters, halves, or the whole hand
holding an orange ball like the morning sun

on a day of soft wind and no clouds
which it so often is. "Oh, I always
want to live like this,
flying up out of the furrows of sleep,

fresh from water and its sheer excitement,
felled as though by a miracle
at this first sharp taste of the day!"
You're shouting, but no one is surprised.

Here, there, everywhere on the earth
thousands are rising and shouting with you --
even those who are utterly silent, absorbed --
their mouths filled with such sweetness.