Poetry

Sometimes someone else's words say what's in our mind. This is from Mary Oliver's 'Dogfish.'

'I wanted the past to go away,
I wanted
to leave it, like another country; I wanted
my life to close, and open
like a hinge, like a wing, like
the part of the song
where it falls
down over the rocks: an explosion,
a discovery;
I wanted
to hurry into the work of my life;
I wanted to know,
whoever I was, I was

alive
for a little while.'