Mary Oliver

“In your handsThe dog, the donkey, surely they know They are alive.Who would argue otherwise?But now, after years of consideration, I am getting beyond that.What about the sunflowers? What about The tulips, and the pines?Listen, all you have to do is start and There’ll be no stopping.What about mountains? What about water Slipping over rocks?And speaking of stones, what about The little ones you can Hold in your hands, their heartbeats So secret, so hidden it may take yearsBefore, finally, you hear them?”

“When When it’s over, it’s over, and we don’t know any of us, what happens then.So I try not to miss anything.I think, in my whole life, I have never missed The full moonor the slipper of its coming back.Or, a kiss.Well, yes, especially a kiss.”

“How heron comesIt is a negligence of the mindnot to notice how at duskheron comes to the pond andstands there in his death robes, perfectservant of the system, hungry, his eyesfull of attention, his wingspure light”

“The poet dreams of the mountainSometimes I grow weary of the days, with all their fits and starts.I want to climb some old gray mountains, slowly, takingThe rest of my lifetime to do it, resting often, sleepingUnder the pines or, above them, on the unclothed rocks.I want to see how many stars are still in the skyThat we have smothered for years now, a century at least.I want to look back at everything, forgiving it all,And peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know.All that urgency! Not what the earth is about!How silent the trees, their poetry being of themselves only.I want to take slow steps, and think appropriate thoughts.In ten thousand years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall.”

“The sweetness of dogs (fifteen) What do you say, Percy? I am thinkingof sitting out on the sand to watchthe moon rise. Full tonight.So we goand the moon rises, so beautiful it makes me shudder, makes me think abouttime and space, makes me takemeasure of myself: one iotapondering heaven. Thus we sit,I thinking how grateful I am for the moon’s perfect beauty and also, oh! How richit is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile, leans against me and gazes up intomy face. As though I werehis perfect moon.”

“The poet dreams of the classroomI dreamedI stood up in classAnd I said aloud:Teacher, Why is algebra important?Sit down, he said.Then I dreamedI stood upAnd I said:Teacher, I’m weary of the turkeysThat we have to draw every fall.May I draw a fox instead?Sit down, he said.Then I dreamedI stood up once more and said:Teacher, My heart is falling asleepAnd it wants to wake up. It needs to be outside.Sit down, he said.”

“Percy wakes me (fourteen)Percy wakes me and I am not ready.He has slept all night under the covers.Now he’s eager for action: a walk, then breakfast.So I hasten up. He is sitting on the kitchen counter Where he is not supposed to be. How wonderful you are, I say. How clever, if you Needed me, To wake me. He thought he would a lecture and deeply His eyes begin to shine.He tumbles onto the couch for more compliments.He squirms and squeals: he has done something That he needed And now he hears that it is okay. I scratch his ears. I turn him over And touch him everywhere. He isWild with the okayness of it. Then we walk, then He has breakfast, and he is happy.This is a poem about Percy.This is a poem about more than Percy.Think about it.”

“Tom Dancer’s gift of a whitebark pine coneYou never know What opportunity Is going to travel to you, Or through you.Once a friend gave me A small pine cone- One of a few He found in the scatOf a grizzly In Utah maybe, Or Wyoming. I took it homeAnd did what I supposed He was sure I would do- I ate it, ThinkingHow it had traveled Through that rough And holy body. It was crisp and sweet.It was almost a prayer Without words. My gratitude, Tom Dancer, For this gift of the world I adore so much And want to belong to. And thank you too, great bear”

“How I go to the woodOrdinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a singlefriend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable.I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours. Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can siton the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almostunhearable sound of the roses singing.If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must loveyou very much.”

“On the beach, at dawn:Four small stones clearlyHugging each other.How many kinds of loveMight there be in the world,And how many formations might they makeAnd who am I everTo imagine I could knowSuch a marvelous business?When the sun brokeIt poured willingly its lightOver the stonesThat did not move, not at all,Just as, to its always generous term,It shed its light on me,My own body that loves, Equally, to hug another body.”

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don't Hesitate)”

“SunriseWhat is the nameof the deep breath I would takeover and overfor all of us? Call it whatever you want, it ishappiness, it is another oneof the ways to enterfire.”

“The poem in which the reader does not feel himself or herself a participant is a lecture, listened to from an uncomfortable chair, in a stuffy room, inside a building.”

“And I do not want anymore to be useful, to be docile, to lead / children out of the fields into the text / of civility, to teach them that they are (they are not) better than the grass.”

“And there you are on the shore,fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them to an idea — some news of your own life. But the liliesare slippery and wild—they are devoid of meaning, they are simply doing, from the deepestspurs of their being, what they are impelled to do every summer. And so, dear sorrow, are you.”

“What will you do with your one precious, wild life?”

“I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country; I wanted my life to close, and open like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song where it falls down 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 wasalive for a little while.”

“I went down not long agoto the Mad River, under the willowsI knelt and drank from that crumpled flow, call itwhat madness you will, there's a sicknessworse than the risk of death and that'sforgetting what we should never forget.Tecumseh lived here.The wounds of the pastare ignored, but hang onlike the litter that snags among the yellow branches,newspapers and plastic bags, after the rains.Where are the Shawnee now?Do you know? Or would you have to write to Washington, and even then,whatever they said,would you believe it? SometimesI would like to paint my body red and go intothe glittering snowto die.His name meant Shooting Star.From Mad River country north to the borderhe gathered the tribesand armed them one more time. He vowedto keep Ohio and it took himover twenty years to fail.After the bloody and final fighting, at Thames,it was over, excepthis body could not be found,and you can do whatever you want with that, sayhis people came in the black leaves of the nightand hauled him to a secret grave, or thathe turned into a little boy again, and leapedinto a birch canoe and wentrowing home down the rivers. Anywaythis much I'm sure of: if we meet him, we'll know it,he will still beso angry.”

“Drive down any road,take a train or an airplaneacross the world, leaveyour old life behind,die and be born again~wherever you arrivethey'll be there first,glossy and rowdyand indistinguishable.The deep muscle of the world.”

“Emerson, I am trying to live, as you said we must, the examined life. But there are days I wish there was less in my head to examine, not to speak of the busy heart.”

“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?”

“And now my old dog is dead, and another I had after him, and my parents are dead, and that first world, that old house, is sold and lost, and the books I gathered there lost, or sold- but more books bought, and in another place, board by board and stone by stone, like a house, a true life built, and all because I was steadfast about one or two things: loving foxes, and poems, the blank piece of paper, and my own energy- and mostly the shimmering shoulders of the world that shrug carelessly over the fate of any individual that they may, the better, keep the Niles and Amazons flowing.”

“DAISIESIt is possible, I suppose that sometimewe will learn everythingthere is to learn: what the world is, for example,and what it means. I think this as I am crossingfrom one field to another, in summer, and themockingbird is mocking me, as one who eitherknows enough already or knows enough to beperfectly content not knowing. Song being bornof quest he knows this: he must turn silentwere he suddenly assaulted with answers. Insteadoh hear his wild, caustic, tender warbling ceaselesslyunanswered. At my feet the white-petalled daisies displaythe small suns of their center piece, their -- if you don'tmind my saying so -- their hearts. Of courseI could be wrong, perhaps their hearts are pale andnarrow and hidden in the roots. What do I know?But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given,to see what is plain; what the sun lights up willingly;for example -- I think thisas I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch --the suitability of the field for the daisies, and thedaisies for the field.”

“The JourneyOne day you finally knewwhat you had to do, and began,though the voices around youkept shoutingtheir bad advice --though the whole housebegan to trembleand you felt the old tugat your ankles."Mend my life!"each voice cried.But you didn't stop.You knew what you had to do,though the wind priedwith its stiff fingersat the very foundations,though their melancholywas terrible.It was already lateenough, and a wild night,and the road full of fallenbranches and stones.But little by little,as you left their voices behind,the stars began to burnthrough the sheets of clouds,and there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own,that kept you companyas you strode deeper and deeperinto the world,determined to dothe only thing you could do --determined to savethe only life you could save.”

“Sometimes I dreamthat everything in the world is here, in my room, in a great closet, named and orderly,and I am here too, in front of it, hardly able to see for the flash and the brightness—and sometimes I am that madcap person clapping my hands and singing; and sometimes I am that quiet person down on my knees.”

“LandscapeIsn't it plain the sheets of moss, except thatthey have no tongues, could lectureall day if they wanted aboutspiritual patience? Isn't it clearthe black oaks along the path are standingas though they were the most fragile of flowers?Every morning I walk like this aroundthe pond, thinking: if the doors of my heartever close, I am as good as dead.Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And nowthe crows break off from the rest of the darknessand burst up into the sky—as thoughall night they had thought of what they would like their lives to be, and imaginedtheir strong, thick wings.”

“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.”

“I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.”

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

“Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.”

“A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the trees, or the laws which pertain to them”

“Crossing the Swamp"Here is the endlesswet thickcosmos, the centerof everything—the nuggetof dense sap, branchingvines, the dark burredfaintly belchingbogs. Hereis swamp, hereis struggle,closure—pathless, seamless,peerless mud. My bonesknock together at the palejoints, tryingfor foothold, fingerhold,mindhold oversuch slick crossings, deephipholes, hummocksthat sink silentlyinto the black, slackearthsoup. I feelnot wet so much aspainted and glitteredwith the fat grassymires, the richand succulent marrowsof earth—a poordry stick givenone more chance by the whimsof swamp water—a boughthat still, after all these years,could take root,sprout, branch out, bud—make of its life a breathingpalace of leaves.”

“yoga soul today. instant resonation.Spring Somewherea black bearhas just risen from sleepand is staring down the mountain.All nightin the brisk and shallow restlessnessof early spring I think of her,her four black fistsflicking the gravel,her tongue like a red firetouching the grass,the cold water.There is only one question: how to love this world.I think of her risinglike a black and leafy ledge to sharpen her claws against the silenceof the trees.Whatever else my life iswith its poemsand its musicand its cities, it is also this dazzling darknesscoming down the mountain,breathing and tasting; all day I think of her –her white teeth,her wordlessness,her perfect love.”

“I feel the terror of idleness,like a red thirst.Death isn't just an idea.”

“It's not a competition, it's a doorway.”

“Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.”

“You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it. ”

“Still, what I want in my lifeis to be willingto be dazzled—to cast aside the weight of factsand maybe evento float a littleabove this difficult world.”

“But I also say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it's done right, is a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive. ”

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”

“Look, the treesare turningtheir own bodiesinto pillarsof light,are giving off the richfragrance of cinnamonand fulfillment,the long tapersof cattailsare bursting and floating away overthe blue shouldersof the ponds,and every pond,no matter what itsname is, isnameless now.Every yeareverythingI have ever learnedin my lifetimeleads back to this: the firesand the black river of losswhose other sideis salvation,whose meaningnone of us will ever know.To live in this worldyou must be ableto do three things:to love what is mortal;to hold itagainst your bones knowingyour own life depends on it;and, when the time comes to let it go,to let it go.”

“Can You Imagine?For example, what the trees donot only in lightening stormsor the watery dark of a summer's nightor under the white nets of winterbut now, and now, and now - wheneverwe're not looking. Surely you can't imaginethey don't dance, from the root up, wishingto travel a little, not cramped so much as wantinga better view, or more sun, or just as avidlymore shade - surely you can't imagine they juststand there loving everyminute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark ringsof the years slowly and without a soundthickening, and nothing different unless the wind,and then only in its own mood, comesto visit, surely you can't imaginepatience, and happiness, like that.”

“Love SorrowLove sorrow. She is yours now, and you musttake care of what has beengiven. Brush her hair, help herinto her little coat, hold her hand,especially when crossing a street. For, think,what if you should lose her? Then you would besorrow yourself; her drawn face, her sleeplessnesswould be yours. Take care, touchher forehead that she feel herself not soutterly alone. And smile, that she does notaltogether forget the world before the lesson.Have patience in abundance. And do notever lie or ever leave her even for a momentby herself, which is to say, possibly, again,abandoned. She is strange, mute, difficult,sometimes unmanageable but, remember, she is a child.And amazing things can happen. And you may see,as the two of you gowalking together in the morning light, howlittle by little she relaxes; she looks about her;she begins to grow.”

“maybe deathisn't darkness, after all,but so much lightwrapping itself around us--”

“And that is just the point... how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”

“So every dayI was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth of the ideas of God,one of which was you.”

“Also I wanted to be able to loveAnd we all know how that one goes, don't we?Slowly”

“for how many years have you gone through the houseshutting the windows,while the rain was still five miles awayand veering, o plum-colored clouds, to the northaway from youand you did not even know enoughto be sorry,you were gladthose silver sheets, with the occasional golden staple,were sweeping on, elsewhere,violent and electric and uncontrollable--and will you find yourself finally wanting to forgetall enclosures, includingthe enclosure of yourself, o lonely leaf, and will youdash finally, frantically,to the windows and haul them open and lean outto the dark, silvered sky, to everythingthat is beyond capture, shoutingi'm here, i'm here! now, now, now, now, now.”

“Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then keep on going.”

“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”