Poetry Tuesday: a poem of three truths

This week a poem by one of the poets I admire most, Mary Oliver.
Her poetry draws on observations of nature that force us to reflect on observations of ourselves.
This one has been running through my mind a lot lately.

Do you have three truths?  What would they be?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side 

is salvation

whose meaning

none of us will every know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

From the fantastic Mary Oliver's New and Selected Poems, Volume One