The Oak Tree Loves Patience
By Mary Oliver

The oak tree loves patience,
The mountain is still looking,

As it has for centuries, for a word to say about
The gradual way it slides itself

Back to the world below
To begin again, in another life,

To be fertile. When the wind blows
The grass whistles and whispers

In myths and riddles and not in our language
But one far older. The sea is the sea is

Always the sea. These things
You can count on as you walk about the world

Happy or sad, talking or silent, making
Weapons, love, poems. The briefest of fires.