Poppies

 

The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn't a place
in this world that doesn't

sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage

shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,

black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.

But also I say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,

when it's done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,

touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—

and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?

—Mary Oliver

[Painting by my mother].

Evidence

 

I.

Where do I live? If I had no address, as many people
do not, I could nevertheless say that I lived in the
same town as the lilies of the field, and the still
waters.

Spring, and all through the neighborhood now there are
strong men tending flowers.

Beauty without purpose is beauty without virtue. But
all beautiful things, inherently, have this function -
to excite the viewers toward sublime thought. Glory
to the world, that good teacher.

Among the swans there is none called the least, or
the greatest.

I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in
singing, especially when singing is not necessarily
prescribed.

As for the body, it is solid and strong and curious
and full of detail; it wants to polish itself; it
wants to love another body; it is the only vessel in
the world that can hold, in a mix of power and
sweetness: words, song, gesture, passion, ideas,
ingenuity, devotion, merriment, vanity, and virtue.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

2.

There are many ways to perish, or to flourish.

How old pain, for example, can stall us at the threshold of function….

Still friends, consider stone, that is without the fret of gravity, and water that is without anxiety.

And the pine trees that never forget their recipe for renewal.

And the female wood duck who is looking this way and that way for her children. And the snapping turtle who is looking this way and that way also. This is the world.

And consider, always, every day, the determination of the grass to grow despite the unending obstacles.

3.

I ask you again: if you have not been enchanted by this adventure--your life--what would do for you?

And, where are you, with your ears bagged down as if with packets of sand? Listen. We all have much more listening to do. Tear the sand away. And listen. The river is singing. …

For myself, I have walked in these woods for

More than forty years, and I am the only

thing, it seems, that is about to be used up.

Or, to be less extravagant, will, in the

Foreseeable future, be used up.

First, though, I want to step out into some

fresh morning and look around and hear myself

crying out: "The house of money is falling! The house of money is falling! The weeds are rising! The weeds are rising!"

—Mary Oliver

[Swans in Hallstatt, Austria]

How Would You Live Then?

What if a hundred rose-breasted grosbeaks

flew in circles around your head? What if

the mockingbird came into the house with you and

became your advisor? What if

the bees filled your walls with honey and all

you needed to do was ask them and they would fill

the bowl? What if the brook slid downhill just

past your bedroom window so you could listen

to its slow prayers as you fell asleep? What if

the stars began to shout their names, or to run

this way and that way above the clouds? What if

you painted a picture of a tree, and the leaves

began to rustle, and a bird cheerfully sang

from its painted branches? What if you suddenly saw

that the silver of water was brighter than the silver

of money? What if you finally saw

that the sunflowers, turning toward the sun all day

and every day – who knows how, but they do it – were

more precious, more meaningful than gold?

—Mary Oliver

The Gardener

Have I lived enough?
Have I loved enough?
Have I considered Right Action enough, have I come to any conclusions?
Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?
Have I endured loneliness with grace?

I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it.
Actually, I probably think too much.

Then I step out into the garden,
where the gardener, who is said to be a simple man,
is tending his children, the roses.

—Mary Oliver 

[Picking arugula with Ella, 2021].

To Begin With, the Sweet Grass

 

3.
The witchery of living
is my whole conversation
with you my darlings.
All I can tell you is what I know.

Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.

It’s more than bones.
It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It’s more than the beating of the single heart.
It’s praising.
It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life—just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another.

7.

...And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.

--Mary Oliver

I Have Decided

 

I have decided to find myself a home 
in the mountains, somewhere high up 
where one learns to live peacefully in
 the cold and the silence. It’s said that
 in such a place certain revelations may
 be discovered. That what the spirit
 reaches for may be eventually felt, if not
 exactly understood. Slowly, no doubt. I’m
 not talking about a vacation.

Of course at the same time I mean to 
stay exactly where I am.

Are you following me?

--Mary Oliver

[The road home].

Of the Empire

We will be known as a culture that feared death
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many. We will be known as a culture that taught
and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke
little if at all about the quality of life for
people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All
the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a
commodity. And they will say that this structure
was held together politically, which it was, and
they will say also that our politics was no more
than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of
the heart, and that the heart, in those days,
was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

Finding a truth teller these days is infinitely precious.

--Mary Oliver (2008)

Halleluiah

 

Everyone should be born into this world happy
and loving everything.
But in truth it rarely works that way.
For myself, I have spent my life clamoring toward it.
Halleluiah, anyway I’m not where I started!

And have you too been trudging like that, sometimes
almost forgetting how wondrous the world is
and how miraculously kind some people can be?
And have you too decided that probably nothing important
is ever easy?
Not, say, for the first sixty years.

Halleluiah, I’m sixty now, and even a little more,
and some days I feel I have wings.

--Mary Oliver

[Visiting Tupelo, MS]

Don’t Hesitate

 

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

—Mary Oliver

[Our precious grandchildren embody and inspire joy!]

Song for Autumn

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