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.
She uses the word swim to show that the turtle sees everything as part of her world like the birds in the air the birds in the air. The turtle feels somehow connected to the birds and sees them as swimming in her pond.
