A Settlement Look, it’s spring. And last year’s loose dust has turnedinto this soft willingness. The wind-flowers have comeup trembling, slowly the brackens are up-lifting theircurvaceous and pale bodies. The thrushes have comehome, none less than filled with mystery, sorrow,happiness, music, ambition. And I am walking out into all of this with nowhere togo and… Continue reading Mary Oliver
who took your handwhen you offered it to me. I am the pledge of emptinessthat turned around.Even the trees smiled. Always I was the birdthat flew off through the branches.Now I am the catwith feathersunder its tongue. —Mary Oliver, “I am the one,” Red Bird (Beacon Press, 2008)
When it’s over, I want to say: all my lifeI was a bride married to amazement. —Mary Oliver, from “When Death Comes” The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry (Vintage, 2003)
Sunrise You candie for it–an idea,or the world. People have done so,brilliantly,lettingtheir small bodies be bound to the stake,creatingan unforgettablefury of light. But this morning,climbing the familiar hillsin the familiarfabric of dawn, I thought of China,and Indiaand Europe, and I thoughthow the sun blazesfor everyone justso joyfullyas it rises under the lashesof my own eyes,… Continue reading Mary Oliver
Sometimes 1. Something came upout of the dark.It wasn’t anything I had ever seen before.It wasn’t an animalor a flower,unless it was both. Something came up out of the water,a head the size of a catbut muddy and without ears.I don’t know what God is.I don’t know what death is. But I believe they have… Continue reading Mary Oliver
7. Death waits for me, I know it, aroundone corner or another.This doesn’t amuse me.Neither does it frighten me. After the rain, I went back into the field of sunflowers.It was cool, and I was anything but drowsy.I walked slowly, and listened to the crazy roots, in the drenched earth, laughing and growing. —Mary Oliver,… Continue reading Mary Oliver
Peonies This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready to break my heart as the sun rises, as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers and they open — pools of lace, white and pink — and all day the black ants climb over them, boring their deep and mysterious… Continue reading Mary Oliver
Give me that dark moment; I will carry it everywhere like a mouthful of rain. — Mary Oliver, from “Pen and Paper and a Breath of Air: Excerpts,” Blue Pastures. (Mariner Books; 1 edition November 10, 1995)
My heart dresses in blackand dances. — Mary Oliver, “After Reading Lucretius, I Go to the Pond,” Blue Horses. (• Penguin Press; Third edition October 14, 2014)
Tell me, what else should I have done?Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life? — Mary Oliver, from “The Summer Day,” House of Light. (Beacon Press; Later Printing edition April 8, 1992)
The Vale of Soul-Making 