To Mary

This poem, one of my recent efforts, is shamelessly reliant on Mary Oliver’s ‘Wild Geese’. It’s one of my more pretentious offerings. I’ve included a photograph of some seagulls – I don’t have any goose pictures. I don’t know much about Mary Oliver either, I’m just name dropping and trying to sound clever. And if that’s not enough, whisky makes me feel sick.

To Mary

It pleases me the nights are drawing in;
the ambience that darkness brings,
enhanced by a glass of ten-year single malt,
is enough to stir the mind and raise the spirits,
of tales laced with mystery and peat smoke.
Whereas those long balmy evenings laced with tired sweat
want for the character and intensity of a chill mist,
and lack the sound of the geese passing overhead,
telling me the seasons are always changing.

After all these years those geese are just as wild, 
still calling, still announcing, to those who would listen,
our own place in the family of things.

So as the light fades, I’ll raise my glass
and drink to Mary and let the world
offer itself to my imagination.