A Poem for a Thursday #121

It has been a while since I have featured a Mary Oliver poem. Her poems are some of my favorites but I try not to overuse them since this series is supposed to expose me to new-to-me poetry. However, when I was searching through poems this morning this is the first one I stopped at and that is enough for me today. The photo is pretty much exactly what I pictured in my head when I read the poem. Cardinals are such cheerful things to see in the middle of winter.

Red bird came all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else could.

Of course I love the sparrows,
those dun-colored darlings,
so hungry and so many.

I am a God-fearing feeder of birds.
I know He has many children,
not all of them bold in spirit.

Still, for whatever reason--
perhaps because the winter is so long
and the sky so black-blue,

or perhaps because the heart narrows
as often as it opens--
I am grateful

that red bird comes all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else can do.

Red Bird
Mary Oliver