White Flowers By Mary Oliver Last night in the fields I lay down in the darkness to think about death, but instead I fell asleep, as if in a vast and sloping room filled with those white flowers that open all summer, sticky and untidy, in the warm fields. When I woke the morning light was just slipping in front of the stars, and I was covered with blossoms. I don’t know how it happened— I don’t know if my body went diving down under the sugary vines in some sleep-sharpened affinity with the depths, or whether that green energy rose like a wave and curled over me, claiming me in its husky arms. I pushed them away, but I didn’t rise. Never in my life had I felt so plush, or so slippery, or so resplendently empty. Never in my life had I felt myself so near that porous line where my own body was done with and the roots and the stems and the flowers began.