Monday's Mary Oliver- Softest of Mornings

(My darling snail, Buckeye )

Softest of Mornings

by Mary Oliver

Softest of mornings, hello.

And what will you do today, I wonder, 

  to my heart?

And how much honey can a heart stand, I wonder,

 before it must break?

This is trivial, or nothing, a snail

  climbing a trellis of leaves

    and the blue trumpets of flowers.

No doubt clocks are ticking loudly 

  all over the world.

I don't hear them. The snail's pale horns

  extend and wave this way and that

as her finger-body shuffles foward, leaving

behind

  the silvery path of her slime.

Oh, softest of mornings, how shall I break this?

How shall I move away from the snail, and the 

  flowers?

How shall I go on, with my introspective and

  ambitious life?