Monday's Mary Oliver- For forty years

For Forty Years
by Mary Oliver

For forty years
the sheets of white paper have
passed under my hands and I have tried
    to improve their peaceful
emptiness putting down
little curls little shafts
of letters words
    little flames leaping
not one page
was less to me than fascinating
discursive full of cadence
    its pale nerves hiding
in the curves of the Qs
behind the soldierly Hs
in the webbed feet of the Ws
    forty years
and again this morning as always
I am stopped as the world comes back
wet and beautiful I am thinking
    that language
is not even a river
is not a tree is not a green field
is not even a black ant traveling
    briskly modestly
from day to day from one
golden page to another.