Coalescence

[kaberett]

The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
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 do
with your one wild and precious life?

A snippet:

... to live in this world

you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

And another:

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

The Journey

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 their voices 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 you could save.

All by Mary Oliver.

Comments

[shehasathree]

♥

[birke]

Mary Oliver manages to be so grim and empowering at the same time.

[atreic]

Thank you again for finding poetry that touches me and drags me away from the busyness and stress.

[Did these all come from the same book? I think I would like to read more...]

[kaberett]

I think most if not all of them are included in New & Selected Poems, vol1. I first came across The Journey in Staying Alive, a fantastic anthology of modern poetry by Bloodaxe Books; I first came across several of the others in Wild Geese, a collection that's in large part duplicated in N&SP (the latter contains More Stuff). Good luck hunting down copies. <3

[sylvaine]

Wow, these are gorgeous.

[quirkytizzy]

So beautiful. So relevant. Poetry helps the hard times. It's relatable and breaks the pain into lines, easy to digest bits, pretty images. I like this lady's poetry.