Mary Oliver

“In Our Woods, Sometimes a Rare MusicEvery springI hear the thrush singingin the glowing woodshe is only passing through.His voice is deep,then he lifts it until it seemsto fall from the sky.I am thrilled.I am grateful.Then, by the end of morning,he's gone, nothing but silenceout of the treewhere he rested for a night.And this I find acceptable.Not enough is a poor life.But too much is, well, too much.Imagine Verdi or Mahlerevery day, all day.It would exhaust anyone.”

“Of course I am thinking the Lord was once young and will never in fact be old.And who else could this be, who goes off down the green path,Carrying his sandals, and singing?”

“eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in…And someone’s face, whom you love, will be as a starBoth intimate and ultimate, And you will be heart-shaken and respectful. And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisperOh let me, for a while longer, enter the twoBeautiful bodies of your lungs...Look, and look again.This world is not just a little thrill for your eyes.It’s more than bones.It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.It’s more than the beating of a single heart.It’s praising.It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.You have a life- just imagine that!You have this day, and maybe another, and maybeStill another…And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned, I have become younger.And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.”

“As for the body, it is solid and strong and curiousand full of detail: it wants to polish itself; it wants to love another body; it is the only vessel in the world that can hold, in a mix of power and sweetness: words, song, gesture, passion, ideas,ingenuity, devotion, merriment, vanity, and virtue.”

“I want to write something so simply about love or about pain that even as you are reading you feel it and as you read you keep feeling it and though it be my story it will be common, though it be singular it will be known to you so that by the end you will think—no, you will realize—that it was all the while yourself arranging the words, that it was all the time words that you yourself, out of your heart had been saying.”

“The language of the poem is the language of particulars.”

“But his big, round music, after all, is too breathy to last.”

“Then I remember: death comes before the rolling away of the stone.”

“You too can be carved anew by the details of your devotion.”

“When Death ComesWhen death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility, and I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular, and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, tending, as all music does, toward silence, and each body a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth. When it's over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world”

“whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh & exciting - over & over announcing your place in the family of things.”

“I wanted the past to go away, I wantedto leave it, like another country; I wantedmy life to close, and openlike a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the songwhere it fallsdown over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;I wantedto hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,whoever I was, I wasalivefor a little while.”

“Clear pebbles of the rain”

“So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing,and put your lips to the world.And live your life.”

“When death comes….I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:what it’s going to be like, that cottage of darkness?”

“Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don't Hesitate)”

“Going to Walden is not so easy a thing As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult Trick of living, and finding it where you are.”

“Every morning I walk like this aroundthe pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, I am as good as dead.”

“I do not live happily or comfortablyWith the cleverness of our times.The talk is all about computers,The news is all about bombs and blood.This morning, in the fresh field,I came upon a hidden nest.It held four warm, speckled eggs.I touched them.Then went away softly,Having felt something more wonderfulThan all the electricity of New York City.”

“Mornings at BlackwaterFor years, every morning, I drankfrom Blackwater Pond.It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,the feet of ducks.And always it assuaged mefrom the dry bowl of the very far past.What I want to say isthat the past is the past,and the present is what your life is,and you are capableof choosing what that will be,darling citizen.So come to the pond,or the river of your imagination,or the harbor of your longing,and put your lips to the world.And liveyour life.”

“When will you have a little pity for every soft thing that walks through the world, yourself included.”

“And now you'll be telling storiesof my coming backand they won't be false, and they won't be truebut they'll be real”

“You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But, listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without doubt,I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.”

“The woods that I loved as a child are entirely gone. The woods that I loved as a young adult are gone. The woods that most recently I walked in are not gone, but they’re full of bicycle trails. And this is happening to the world, and I think it is very very dangerous for our future generations, those of us who believe that the world is not only necessary to us in its pristine state, but it is in itself an act of some kind of spiritual thing. I said once, and I think this is true, the world did not have to be beautiful to work. But it is. What does that mean?[from 'A Thousand Mornings' With Poet Mary Oliver for NPR Books]”

“it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.”

“Sleeping In The ForestI thought the earth remembered me,she took me back so tenderly,arranging her dark skirts, her pocketsfull of lichens and seeds.I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,nothing between me and the white fire of the starsbut my thoughts, and they floated light as mothsamong the branches of the perfect trees.All night I heard the small kingdomsbreathing around me, the insects,and the birds who do their work in the darkness.All night I rose and fell, as if in water,grappling with a luminous doom. By morningI had vanished at least a dozen timesinto something better.”

“A Thousand MorningsAll night my heart makes its wayhowever it can over the rough groundof uncertainties, but only until nightmeets and then is overwhelmed bymorning, the light deepening, thewind easing and just waiting, as Itoo wait (and when have I ever beendisappointed?) for redbird to sing”

“When it's over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement.”

“Always there is something worth sayingabout glory, about gratitude.”

“The salamanders,like tiny birds, locked into formation,fly down into the endless mysteriesof the transforming water,and how could anyone believethat anything in this worldis only what it appears to be—that anything is ever final—that anything, in spite of its absence,ever diesa perfect death?(from the poem 'What Is It?')”

“Love, love, love, says Percy.And run as fast as you canalong the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.Then, go to sleep.Give up your body heat, your beating heart.Then, trust.”

“And to tell the truth I don't want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don't want to sell my life for money, I don't even want to come in out of the rain.”

“I Go Down To The ShoreI go down to the shore in the morningand depending on the hour the wavesare rolling in or moving out,and I say, oh, I am miserable,what shall—what should I do? And the sea saysin its lovely voice:Excuse me, I have work to do.”

“What misery to be afraid of death.What wretchedness, to believe only in what can be proven.”

“At Blackwater PondAt Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settledafter a night of rain.I dip my cupped hands. I drinka long time. It tasteslike stone, leaves, fire. It falls coldinto my body, waking the bones. I hear themdeep inside me, whisperingoh what is that beautiful thingthat just happened?”

“I thought the earth remembered me,she took me back so tenderly,arranging her dark skirts, her pocketsfull of lichens and seeds.I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,nothing between me and the white fire of the starsbut my thoughts, and they floated light as mothsamong the branches of the perfect trees.All night I heard the small kingdomsbreathing around me, the insects,and the birds who do their work in the darkness.All night I rose and fell, as if in water,grappling with a luminous doom. By morningI had vanished at least a dozen timesinto something better.”

“Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -An armful of white blossoms,A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leanedinto the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,Biting the air with its black beak?Did you hear it, fluting and whistlingA shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfallKnifing down the black ledges?And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feetLike black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?And have you changed your life?”

“Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me"Last nightthe rainspoke to meslowly, saying,what joyto come fallingout of the brisk cloud,to be happy againin a new wayon the earth!That’s what it saidas it dropped,smelling of iron,and vanishedlike a dream of the oceaninto the branchesand the grass below.Then it was over.The sky cleared.I was standingunder a tree.The tree was a treewith happy leaves,and I was myself,and there were stars in the skythat were also themselvesat the moment,at which momentmy right handwas holding my left handwhich was holding the treewhich was filled with starsand the soft rain—imagine! imagine!the wild and wondrous journeysstill to be ours.”

“I had a dogwho loved flowers.Briskly she wentthrough the fields,yet pausedfor the honeysuckleor the rose,her dark headand her wet nosetouchingthe faceof every onewith its petalsof silkwith its fragrancerisinginto the airwhere the bees,their bodiesheavy with pollenhovered -and easilyshe adoredevery blossomnot in the seriouscareful waythat we choosethis blossom or that blossomthe way we praise or don't praise -the way we loveor don't love -but the waywe long to be -that happyin the heaven of earth -that wild, that loving.”

“oxygen Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even, while it calls the earth its home, the soul. So the merciful, noisy machine stands in our house working away in its lung-like voice. I hear it as I kneel before the fire, stirring with a stick of iron, letting the logs lie more loosely. You, in the upstairs room, are in your usual position, leaning on your right shoulder which aches all day. You are breathing patiently; it is a beautiful sound. It is your life, which is so close to my own that I would not know where to drop the knife of separation. And what does this have to do with love, except everything? Now the fire rises and offers a dozen, singing, deep-red roses of flame. Then it settles to quietude, or maybe gratitude, as it feeds as we all do, as we must, upon the invisible gift: our purest, sweet necessity: the air.”

“DogfishI wantedThe past to go away, I wantedTo leave it, like another country; I wantedMy life to close, and openLike a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song Where it fallsDown over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery; I wanted To hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,Whoever I was, I wasAliveFor a little while.…mostly, I want to be kind.And nobody, of course, is kind,Or mean,For a simple reason.And nobody gets out of it, having to Swim through the fires to stay inThis world.”

“There are things you can’t reach. ButYou can reach out to them, and all day long.The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of god.And it can keep you busy as anything else, and happier.I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing aroundAs though with your arms open.”

“The Old Poets Of ChinaWherever I am, the world comes after me.It offers me its busyness. It does not believethat I do not want it. Now I understandwhy the old poets of China went so far and highinto the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.”

“PrayingIt doesn’t have to bethe blue iris, it could beweeds in a vacant lot, or a fewsmall stones; justpay attention, then patcha few words together and don’t tryto make them elaborate, this isn’ta contest but the doorwayinto thanks, and a silence in whichanother voice may speak.”

“From the complications of loving youI think there is no end or return.No answer, no coming out of it.Which is the only way to love, isn’t it?This isn’t a play ground, this isearth, our heaven, for a while.Therefore I have given precedenceto all my sudden, sullen, dark moodsthat hold you in the center of my world.And I say to my body: grow thinner still.And I say to my fingers, type me a pretty song.And I say to my heart: rave on.”

“Look, hasn't my body already felt like the body of a flower?”

“I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us...”

“The Uses Of Sorrow(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)Someone I loved once gave mea box full of darkness.It took me years to understandthat this, too, was a gift.”

“I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.”

“Sing, if you can sing, and if not still bemusical inside yourself.”