Mockingbirds (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

This morning                                                 and blessed them.       

two mockingbirds                                         When the gods rose                                  

in the green fields                                       out of their mortal bodies,

were spinning and tossing                            like a million particles of water

the white ribbons                                        from a fountain,

of their songs                                             the light

into the air.                                                swept into all the corners

I had nothing                                              of the cottage,

 

better to do                                               and the old couple,

than listen.                                                shaken with understanding,

I mean this                                                bowed down ---

seriously.                                                   but still they asked for nothing

 

In Greece,                                                beyond the difficult life

a long time ago,                                        which they had already.

an old couple                                            And the gods smiled as they vanished,

opened their door                                    clapping their great wings.

 

to two strangers                                      Wherever it was

who were,                                                I was supposed to be

it soon appeared,                                    this morning ---

not men at all,                                         whatever it was I said

 

but gods,                                                I would be doing---

It is my favorite story---                       I was standing

how the old couple                                  at the edge of the field---

had almost nothing to give                      I was hurrying

 

but their willingness                                through my own soul,

to be attentive---                                    opening its dark doors---

and for this alone                                    I was leaning out;

the gods loved them                                I was listening.

 

 

from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017          

From Blossoms (Monday Poem)

By Li-Young Lee

 

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward   
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into   
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

from Rose, by Li-Young Lee

BOA Editions Ltd., 1986  www.boaeditions.org.

A Brass Bowl (Monday Poem)

 by  Wendell Berry

Worn to brightness, this

bowl opens outward

to the world, like

the marriage of a pair

we sometimes know.

Filled full, it holds

not greedily. Empty,

it fills with light

that is Heaven's and

it own. It holds

forever for a while.

 

 

from This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems by Wendell Berry

Counterpoint, 2013 

 

Summer Poem (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

Leaving the house,

I went out to see

the frog, for example,

in her shining green skin;

and her eggs

like a slippery veil;

and her eyes

with their golden rims;

and the pond

with its risen lilies;

and its warmed shores

dotted with pink flowers;

and the long, windless afternoon;

and the white heron

like a dropped cloud,

taking one slow step

then standing awhile then taking

another, writing

her own softfooted poem

through the still waters.

from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

Just as the Calendar Began to Say Summer (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver

I went out of the schoolhouse fast

and through the gardens and to the woods,

and spent all summer forgetting what I'd been taught --

two times two, and diligence, and so forth,

how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth,

machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth.

By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back

to the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember

the way the river kept rolling its pebbles,

the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn't a penny in the bank,

the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light.

from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017