"In Blackwater Woods" about letting go, by Mary Oliver

In Blackwater Woods

(fragment)

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

 

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

 

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

 

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

--Mary Oliver 

A picture of Tangier, Morocco, taken in December 2019. For more context, you can check my Instagram.

Full text: Mary Oliver "In Blackwater Woods" (archive.org)

Shared by Lucy Foggle - Tolstoy Therapy

Conway Street Park, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, August 2024.

Una traducción al español de las últimas dos estrofas:

Para vivir en este mundo

debes ser capazde hacer tres cosas:
amar lo que es mortal,
sostenerlo

contra tus huesos
sabiendo que tu propia vida
depende de ello
y, cuando llegue el momento de dejarlo ir,
dejarlo ir.