Return
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Last night the geese came back,
slanting fast from the blossom
of the rising moon down
to the black pond.
A muskrat swimming in the twilight
saw them and hurried
to the secret lodges
to tell everyone spring had come.
And so it had.
By morning when I went out
the last of the ice had disappeared,
blackbirds sang on the shores.
Every year the geese,
returning,
do this,
I don’t know how.
―Mary Oliver
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Poem: Return from Absolute Zero