(In case you missed it at The Writer’s Almanac on December 6, Mary Oliver’s poem “I Looked Up” inspired this.)
LOCH VALE
My love for you is like a mountain lake — hidden
though not inaccessible. Harder
to reach in winter when I need snowshoes
and poles to make the trek.
Once when I was avoiding you, I set a course
up a new trail but the snow
distracted me forced me up a gorge
straight to you. Waiting there
was a Steller’s jay, his black crest peeking out
from a ponderosa pine. I think Mary Oliver
sent him. She knew that I needed that burst
of blue wings, telling me not to be afraid.
