By: Mary Oliver
“On cold evenings,
my grandmother,
with ownership of half her mind,
the other half having flown back to Bohemia,
spread newspapers over the porch floor
so, she said, the garden ants could crawl beneath,
as under a blanket, and keep warm,
and what shall I wish for, for myself,
but, being so struck by the lightning of years,
to be like her with what is left, that loving.”
