Formatting of the Mary Oliver Poem, Sleeping in the Forest, discussed 1/19;

                                                             Sleeping in the Forest

by Mary Oliver

I thought the earth

remembered me, she

took me back so tenderly, arranging

her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds.  I slept

as never before, a stone 

on the riverbed, nothing

between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated 

light as moths among the branches

of the perfect trees.  All night

I heard the small kingdoms breathing

around me, the insects, and the birds

who do their work in the darkness.  All night

I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling 

with a luminous doom.  By morning

I had vanished a least a dozen times 

into something better. 

—- originally in her book, Twelve Moons,  1979

             —- also in her 2017 collection, Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

This justified centering gives quite a different feel to the poem which we read in this format as published in Oct. 2020 n  https://artistic.umn.edu/sleeping-forest-poem-mary-oliver

 

Sleeping in the Forest  by Mary Oliver

I thought the earth remembered me,

she took me back so tenderly,

arranging her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds.

I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,

nothing between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts and they floated light as moths

among the branches of the perfect trees.

All night I heard the small kingdoms

breathing around me, the insects,

and the birds who do their work in the darkness.

All night I rose and fell, as if in water,

grappling with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better.