Tom Dancer’s gift of a whitebark pine coneYou never know	What opportunity		Is going to travel to you,			Or through you.Once a friend gave me	A small pine cone-		One of a few			He found in the scatOf a grizzly	In Utah maybe,		Or Wyoming.			I took it homeAnd did what I supposed	He was sure I would do-		I ate it,		 ThinkingHow it had traveled 	Through that rough		And holy body.			It was crisp and sweet.It was almost a prayer	Without words.		My gratitude, Tom Dancer, 			For this gift of the world			I adore so much			 And want to belong to.				And thank you too, great bear
Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems
nature, poetry, spirituality