Once I - A poem by Jane Hirshfield on oneness

Reading Jane Hirshfield from this month's edition of the poetry magazine.  The poem is called "Once I" -  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/245604#poem

Once, Iwas seven Spanish bullocks in a high meadow,
sleepy and nameless.

In a prior life, I, says the soul of the poem, was seven Spanish bullocks in a high meadow.  These bullocks are sleepy and nameless -- not awake and not with ego.

As-ifness strange to myself, but complete.


This ridiculous statement might seem strange, but it is "complete" -- it is a statement stemming from the principle of oneness.


Light on the neck-nape
of time
as two wings of one starling,
or lovers so happy
neither needs think of the other.

This is a revelation to me, a light of some sort, that there was no difference between all the bullocks.  They were all one.  They were an "I."  Just like there is no difference in two wings of a starling. Or two happy lovers who are so in love, that leave apart say anything to each other, they don't even have to think of the other, as "the other".  They are one.

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