In memory of Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver–An amazing poet

Mary Oliver died earlier this week leaving the world a poorer place without her inspiring presence, but also leaving it a better place for her poetry and other writings. She touched so many lives–including mine. She shared her gift of observation, of seeing deeply into ordinary things, of making the simple gifts of nature and life magical and exalted. Mary Oliver will be missed, but she will live on in our hearts and minds through her words.

Poetry Friday

In honor of Mary Oliver and because it’s Poetry Friday, I’m sharing one of my favorite poems of hers. The Miss Rumphius Effect is hosting this week’s Poetry Friday. She has also shared a poem and some thoughts about Mary Oliver–as have many other participants. You can find links to those and other Poetry Friday posts on her blog.

If you missed my post last week, I wrote about the holy nights and the time in between.

But here’s Mary Oliver’s poem—

The Swan

Across the wide waters
   something comes
      floating–a slim
         and delicate

ship, filled
   with white flowers–
      and it moves
         on its miraculous muscles

as though time didn’t exist
   as though bringing such gifts
      to the dry shore
         was a happiness

almost beyond bearing.
   And now it turns its dark eyes,
      it rearranges
         the clouds of its wings,

it trails
   an elaborate webbed foot,
      the color of charcoal.
         Soon it will be here.

Oh, what shall I do
   when that poppy-colored beak
      rests in my hand?
         Said Mrs. Blake of the poet:

I miss my husband’s company–
   he is so often
      in paradise.
         Of course! the path to heaven

doesn’t lie down in flat miles.
   It’s in the imagination
      with which you perceive
         this world,

and the gestures
   with which you honor it.
      Oh, what will I do, what will I say, when those white wings
         touch the shore?
Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume 1, Beacon Press, 2005.

This poem reminds me of the fleetingness of life–and its preciousness.

More Inspiration from Mary Oliver

Here’s one more quote from Mary Oliver’s book of essays, Upstream, from the essay of the same name

… Sometimes the desire to be lost again, as long ago, comes over me like a vapor. With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn’t choose them, I don’t fault them, but it took time to reject them.

Now in the spring I kneel, I put my face into the packets of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness. Something is wrong, I know it, if I don’t keep my attention on eternity. May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the wind-flower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect.
 
_________________________________________

Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin flowers. And the frisky ones—inkberry, lamb’s-quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones—rosemary, oregano.

Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.
 
 
Attention is the beginning of devotion.

from Upstream by Mary Oliver

Thank you, Mary Oliver

Words fail me after reading her beautiful words, so I will just end this post with a heartfelt thank you to Mary Oliver for all she’s given to me and to so many.

And thanks to all of you for stopping by.

xoxo