Tag Archives: mary oliver

Oct7

october slipped quietly in.

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“Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now how comfortable it will be to touch the earth instead of the nothingness of the air and the endless freshets of wind? And don’t you think the trees, especially those with mossy hollows, are beginning to look for the birds that will come – six, a dozen – to sleep inside their bodies? And don’t you hear the goldenrod whispering goodbye, the everlasting being crowned with the first tuffets of snow? The pond stiffens and the white field over which the fox runs so quickly brings out its long blue shadows. The wind wags its many tails. And in the evening the piled firewood shifts a little, longing to be on its way.”

~Mary Oliver, “Song for Autumn”

 

 

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art credit: willowday flower project by gina, stockholm

Dec23

an answer.

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THE NIGHT TRAVELER

Passing by, he could be anybody:

A thief, a tradesman, a doctor

On his way to a worried house.

But when he stops at your gate,

Under the room where you lie half-asleep,

You know it is not just anyone—

It is the Night Traveler.

You lean your arms on the sill

And stare down. But all you can see

Are bits of wilderness attached to him—

Twigs, loam and leaves,

Vines and blossoms. Among these

You feel his eyes, and his hands

Lifting something in the air.

He has a gift for you, but it has no name.

It is windy and woolly.

He holds it in the moonlight, and it sings

Like a newborn beast,

Like a child at Christmas,

Like your own heart as it tumbles

In love’s green bed.

You take it, and he is gone.

All night—and all your life, if you are willing—

It will nuzzle your face, cold-nosed,

Like a small white wolf;

It will curl in your palm

Like a hard blue stone;

It will liquefy into a cold pool

Which, when you dive into it,

Will hold you like a mossy jaw.

A bath of light. An answer.

 

 

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credits: poem from Twelve Moons, 1979 by Mary Oliver, painting – google images

Dec2

hearts to you.

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my heart goes out to all children, their families, and their teachers

senselessly lost or hurt this week in a just a moment at a local school.

as a mother, grandmother, teacher, and human

i cannot make sense of it.

 

 

 

 

 

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image credit: wild and precious

Dec2

hearts to you.

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my heart goes out to all children, their families, and their teachers

senselessly lost or hurt this week in a just a moment at a local school.

as a mother, grandmother, teacher, and human

i cannot make sense of it.

—

image credit: wild and precious

Aug18

all the loveliness.

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queen anne’s lace in august
—
Passing The Unworked Field
Queen Anne’s lace
is hardly prized but
neither is it idle,
look how it
stands fiercely
on its thin stem,
how it
nurtures its white budlets
with the
gift of the sun,
how it
makes for this world
all the
loveliness it can.
-Mary Oliver
Nov14

mysteries, yes.

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“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

Apr9

journey.

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“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.”

 

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credits: papercut by annie howe papercuts, poetry by Mary Oliver – ‘Journey.’