Summer Poem (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver

Leaving the house,

I went out to see

the frog, for example,

in her shining green skin;

and her eggs

like a slippery veil;

and her eyes

with their golden rims;

and the pond

with its risen lilies;

and its warmed shores

dotted with pink flowers;

and the long, windless afternoon;

and the white heron

like a dropped cloud,

taking one slow step

then standing awhile then taking

another, writing

her own soft-footed poem

through the still waters.

From What Do We Know: Poems and Prose Poems by Mary Oliver

2002, Da Capo Press