Weekly Reading

If the philosopher is right
If the philosopher is right,
that all we are
and all the earth around us
is only a dream,

even if a bright, long dream-
that even is nothing
but what sits in the mind,

that the trees, that the red bird
are all in the mind,
and the river, and the sea in storm
are all in the mind,

that nothing exists fierce or soft or apt to be
truly shaken-
nothing tense, wild sleepy-nothing
likes Yeats' girl with the yellow hair-
then you too are a dream

which last night and the night before that
and the years before that
you were not.
~Mary Oliver