In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver

The theme of this poem seemed to be that everyone needs to learn to love even though what they love will someday leave them.
The first half is showing that it happens in nature. The trees are dying, but are accepting it as fulfillment of what needed to happen. The cattails are moving on. The pond is becoming unimportant because important things have names. She creates this picture of things leaving, but the way she describes it makes it seem as though it's natural. The trees and the cattails and the ponds aren't fighting it because it's part of what they know needs to happen.

Then, she starts to describe it for the human. The three things she talks about are really just about not being afraid to love. It's kind of cool how she says it in such a way that the kind of love doesn't really matter. It could be romantic love or the love for a child or really just a love for a friend or a thing that will one day end. I don't think the word 'mortal' necessarily means that it's a human, but just something that will end. 

It's also really interesting that she doesn't show what she's talking about until the very end. The reader goes 6 and 3/4 stanzas before we actually understand what she's saying. But despite this, she gives the reason that those three things are necessary before she even presents them. She creates the picture of crossing a firepit and raging river of the loss of losing one's love, but also creates the picture of coming out better on the other side. That is really the reason the we all "must be able to do these three things."

I really enjoyed this poem and I thought that it was very coincidental that I was comtemplating and struggling with my own sense of fear for loss when I sat down to read a poem for my blog.