Mary Oliver

(via AAP) More poetry! My dad also got me interested in Mary Oliver. He recently bought her newest book of poetry, Thirst, which came out October 4, 2006. Mary Oliver is a highly respected natural poet. She writes about the simplicity and beauty of being at peace in nature. From Academy of American Poetry, "Mary Oliver's poetry is an excellent antidote for the excesses of civilization," wrote one reviewer for the Harvard Review, "for too much flurry and inattention, and the baroque conventions of our social and professional lives. She is a poet of wisdom and generosity whose vision allows us to look intimately at a world not of our making." See if you agree. Let's start off with what I think is one of her most famous poems:
When Death Comes When 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 his 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 a 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.
Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
Mockingbirds This morning two mockingbirds in the green field were spinning and tossing the white ribbons of their songs into the air. I had nothing better to do than listen. I mean this seriously. In Greece, a long time ago, an old couple opened their door to two strangers who were, it soon appeared, not men at all, but gods. It is my favorite story-- how the old couple had almost nothing to give but their willingness to be attentive-- but for this alone the gods loved them and blessed them-- when they rose out of their mortal bodies, like a million particles of water from a fountain, the light swept into all the corners of the cottage, and the old couple, shaken with understanding, bowed down-- but still they asked for nothing but the difficult life which they had already. And the gods smiled, as they vanished, clapping their great wings. Wherever it was I was supposed to be this morning-- whatever it was I said I would be doing-- I was standing at the edge of the field-- I was hurrying through my own soul, opening its dark doors-- I was leaning out; I was listening.
Good stuff. I hope you enjoy these poems. Much love and peace to all.