Question

She’s only filled

with an old blind wish.

It isn’t even hers but came to her

in the rain or the soft wind

which is a gate through which her life keeps walking.



She can’t see

herself apart from the rest of the world

or the world from what she must do

every spring.

Crawling up the high hill,

luminous under the sand that has packed against her skin,

she doesn’t dream

she knows

she is a part of the pond she lives in,

the tall trees are her children,

the birds that swim above her

are tied to her by an unbreakable string.

—“The Turtle,”
Mary Oliver

Write one to three sentences explaining how the word “swim” adds to the idea that the turtle “can’t see herself apart from the rest of the world” in the final stanza.

Answer 1

Describing the birds as “swim[ming] above her” collapses the usual boundaries between air and water, making their movement an extension of the turtle’s watery world and aligning their motions with hers. By using a verb tied to the turtle’s medium, the poem reinforces that she perceives all creatures and elements as continuous parts of a single, inseparable whole.