Before she said so, I knew (every book dedicated to Molly Malone Cook)

In Blackwater Woods                          Mary Oliver (9/10/35-1/17/2019) Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars   of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment,   the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders   of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is   nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned   in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side   is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world   you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it   against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. She wrote the same poem over and over, but so masterfully and well. I have a shelf full of her poetry. Beautiful line breaks, no extraneous words, clear and clean. This poem is a perfect example.