In Praise of Craziness, of a Certain Kind

On cold evenings
my grandmother,
with ownership of half her mind --
the other half having flown back to Bohemia --

spread newspapers over the porch floor
so, she said, the garden ants could crawl beneath,
as under a blanket, and keep warm,

and what should I wish for, for myself,
but, being so struck by the lightning of years,
to be like her with what is left, that loving.

Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems: Volume Two (Beacon Press, 2005)