WEST WIND #2

by Mary Oliver

You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.

Life without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.

Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and your heart, and heart's little intelligence, and listen to me.

It is not worth a bent penny or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a dead dog nine days unburied.

When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the sharp rocks -- when you hear that unmistakable pounding -- when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls plunging and steaming -- then row, row for your life toward it.