Seven White Butterflies
by Mary OliverSeven white butterflies
delicate in a hurry look
how they bang the pages
of their wings as they fly
to the fields of mustard yellow
and orange and plain
gold all eternity
is in the moment this is what
Blake said Whitman said such
wisdom in the agitated
motions of the mind seven
dancers floating
even as worms toward
paradise see how they banter
and riot and rise
to the trees flutter
lob their white bodies into
the invisible wind weightless
lacy willing
to deliver themselves unto
the universe now each settles
down on a yellow thumb on a
brassy stem now
all seven are rapidly sipping
from the golden tower who
would have thought it could be so easy?
Mary Oliver is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize (for American Primitive) and the National Book Award. She has taught at Sweet Briar, Pennington and other universities and is widely anthologized twice in Best American Poetry, The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, three times in Best American Essays. A Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of four honorary doctorates, she lives in Provincetown, MA. Oliver has published three volumes of prose and thirty of poetry, the most recent Dog Songs in 2013. "Seven White Butterflies" was first published in Shenandoah 45/3.
