April 20, 2010

A poem entitled "Yellow" by Mary Oliver

There is the heaven we enter
through institutional grace
and there are the yellow finches bathing and singing
in the lowly puddle.

This is a modern day poem that draws its power through the use of parallelism (a primary thought--lines 1 and 2, deepened by 3 and 4. This technique was used by the biblical poets.
It is so simple and yet so evocative.

I am so grateful for poets...ancient and contemporay and all those in between.