Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen
Today is Gustav Mahler’s birthday, and as usual I went out early into the sea-green morning where the birds were singing, all over but mostly at the scalloped edges of the ponds and in the branches of the trees, which flared out and down, like the clothes of our spirits patiently waiting. For hours I wandered over the fields and the only thing that kept me company was a song, it glided along with my delicious dark happiness, my heavy, bristling and aching delight at the world which has been like this forever and forever — the leaves, the birds, the ponds, the loneliness, and, sometimes, from a lifetime ago and another country such a willing and lilting companion — a song made so obviously for me. At what unknowable cost. And by a stranger.

Mary Oliver for Molly Malone Cook

 

Gustav Mahler – Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen – Janet Baker