so I won something wonderful

I’ll tell you a half-dozen things 

that happened to me 

in Indiana 

when I went that far west to teach. 

You tell me if it was worth it. 

 

I lived in the country 

with my dog— 

part of the bargain of coming. 

And there was a pond 

with fish from, I think, China. 

I felt them sometimes against my feet. 

Also, they crept out of the pond, along its edges, 

to eat the grass. 

I am not lying. 

And I saw coyotes, 

two of them, at dawn, running over the seemingly 

unenclosed fields. 

And once a deer, but a buck, thick-necked, leaped 

into the road just—oh, I mean just, in front of my car— 

and we both made it home safe. 

And once the blacksmith came to care for the four horses, 

or the three horses that belonged to the owner of the house, 

and I bargained with him, if I could catch the fourth, 

he, too, would have hooves trimmed 

for the Indiana winter, 

and apples did it, 

and a rope over the neck did it, 

so I won something wonderful; 

and there was, one morning, 

an owl 

flying, oh pale angel, into 

the hay loft of a barn, 

I see it still; 

and there was once, oh wonderful, 

a new horse in the pasture, 

a tall, slim being—a neighbor was keeping him there— 

and she put her face against my face, 

put her muzzle, her nostrils, soft as violets, 

against my mouth and my nose, and breathed me, 

to see who I was, 

a long quiet minute—minutes— 

then she stamped feet and whisked tail 

and danced deliciously into the tall grass away, and came back. 

She was saying, so plainly, that I was good, or good enough 

Such a fine time I had teaching in Indiana. 

 

[Mary Oliver {1935-2019} 'The Poet Goes to Indiana', from The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays]