“august of another summer,
and once again I am drinking the sun
and the lilies again are spread across the water.”
-mary oliver
—
gallup park, ann arbor, mi, usa – august 2022
“MYSTERIES, YES”
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.”
― Mary Oliver, Evidence: Poems
“One day you finally knew what you had to do,
and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice —
though the whole house began to tremble
and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
“Mend my life!” each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do, though the wind
pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations
though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little, as you left your voice behind,
the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds
and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world,
determined to do the only thing you could do —
determined to save the only life that you could save.”
—
credits: papercut by annie howe papercuts, poetry by Mary Oliver – ‘Journey.’