The Turtle by Mary Oliver

The Turtle

 breaks from the blue- black skin of the water,

 dragging her shell with its mossy scutes 

across the shallows and through the rushes 

and over the mudflats, to the uprise, 

to the yellow sand,to dig with her ungainly feet a nest, 

and hunker there spewing her white eggs

 down into the darkness, 

and you think of her patience, 

her fortitude, 

her determination to complete what she was born to do— 

and then you realize a greater thing— 

she doesn’t consider

what she was born to do.

 She’s only filled with an old blind wish. 

It isn’t even hers 

but came to her in the rain 

or the soft wind, 

which is a gate 

through which her life keeps walking.

 She can’t see herself apart 

from the rest of the world 

or the world 

from what she must do every spring. 

Crawling up the high hill, 

luminous under the sand 

that has packed against her skin.

 she doesn’t dream 

she knows she is a part 

of the pond she lives in, 

the tall trees are her children, 

the birds that swim above her 

are tied to her 

by an unbreakable string.