The Place I Want to Get Back To

is where
in the pinewoods
in the moments between
the darkness

and first light
two deer
came walking down the hill
and when they saw me

they said to each other, okay,
this one is okay,
let's see who she is

and why she is sitting
on the ground like that,

so quiet, as if
asleep, or in a dream,

but, anyway, harmless;

and so they came
on their slender legs
and gazed upon me
not unlike the way

I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward

and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring to me that could exceed
that brief moment?
For twenty years

I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
Such gifts, bestowed,
can't be repeated.

If you want to talk about this
come to visit. I live in the house
near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.

by Mary Oliver

This is the poem that was posted on The Writer's Almanac yesterday. It took my breath away. It reminded me so much of one of my all-time favorite nature essays by Annie Dillard called "Living Like Weasels" where she describes locking eyes with a weasel in the woods. There's something magical about experiences like the two these ladies describe.