I walked, all one spring day, upstream, sometime in the midst of ripples, sometimes along the shore. My company were violets, Dutchman’s-breeches, spring beauties, trilliums, bloodroot, ferns rising so curled one could feel the upward push of the delicate hairs upon their bodies. My companions were downstream, not far away, then father away because I was walking the wrong way, upstream inside of downstream, I was slopping along happily in the streams coolness. So maybe it was the right way after all. If this was lost, let us all be lost always. The beech leaves were slipping their copper coats; pale green and quivering they arrived into the year. My heart opened, and opened again. The water pushed against my effort, then its glassy permission to step ahead touched my ankles. The sense of going toward the source.
I do not think that I ever, in fact, returned home.
A selection from Upstream, by Mary Oliver
