I had a dog
  who loved flowers.
    Briskly she went
      through the fields,

yet paused
  for the honeysuckle
    or the rose,
      her dark head

and her wet nose
  touching
    the face
      of every one

with its petals
  of silk
    with its fragrance
      rising

into the air
  where the bees,
    their bodies
    heavy with pollen

hovered—
  and easily
    she adored
      every blossom

not in the serious
  careful way
    that we choose
      this blossom or that blossom—

the way we praise or don’t praise—
  the way we love
    or don’t love—
      but the way

we long to be—
  that happy
    in the heaven of earth—
      that wild, that loving.

—Mary Oliver, Red Bird, 2008