The Sun

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful 


than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon


and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea, 
and is gone ---
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower


streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance---
and have you ever felt for anything


such wild love---
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a work billowing enough
for the pleasure


that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you


as you stand there,
empty-handed---

or have you too
turned from this world---


or have you too
gone crazy
for power, 
for things?


Mary Oliver from New and Selected Poems: Volume One