In my Prayer Journal...

"Starlight" Father Arthur Poulin

Poem 
by Mary Oliver
​
The spirit 
   likes to dress up like this: 
     ten fingers, 
       ten toes,

shoulders, and all the rest 
   at night 
      in the black branches 
         in the morning

in the blue branches  
    of the world. 
       It could float, of course, 
          but would rather

plumb rough matter. 
   Airy and shapeless thing, 
      it needs 
         the metaphor of the body,

lime and appetite, 
   the oceanic fluids; 
      it needs the body's world, 
        instinct
 
and imagination 
   and the dark hug of time 
     sweetness 
       and tangibility

to be understood, 
   to be more than pure light 
      that burns 
         where no one is --

so it enters us -- 
    in the morning 
       shines from brute comfort 
          like a stitch of lightning;

and at night 
   lights up the deep and wondrous 
      drownings of the body 
         like a star.