Yes! No! (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

 

 

How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the spotted trout

lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the earth. I

think serenity is not something you just find in the world,

like a plum tree, holding up its white petals.

 

The violets, along the river, are opening up their blue faces,

like small dark lanterns.

 

The green mosses, being so many, are as good as brawny.

 

How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly,

looking at everything and calling out

 

Yes! No! The

 

swan, for all his pomp, his robes of glass and petals, wants

only to be allowed to live on the nameless pond. The catbrier

is without fault. The water thrushes, down among the sloppy

rocks, are going crazy with happiness. Imagination is better

than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless

and proper work.

 

 

 

from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

by Mary Oliver

Penguin Random House, 2020  

 

 

 

 

Turtle (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

 

 

Now I see it--

it nudges with its bulldog head

the slippery stems of the lilies, making them tremble;

and now it noses along in the wake of the little brown teal

 

who is leading her soft children

from one side of the pond to the other; she keeps

close to the edge

and they follow closely, the good children--

 

the tender children,

the sweet children, dangling their pretty feet

into the darkness.

And now will come-- I can count on it--the murky splash,

 

the certain victory

of that pink and gassy mouth, and the frantic

circling of the hen while the rest of the chicks

flare away over the water and into the reeds, and my heart

 

will be most mournful

on their account. But, listen,

what's important?

Nothing's important

 

except that the great and cruel mystery of the world,

of which this is a part,

not be denied. Once,

I happened to see, on a city street, in summer,

 

a dusty, fouled turtle plodding along--

a snapper --

broken out I suppose from some backyard cage-- 

and I knew what I had to do--

 

I looked it right in the eyes, and I caught it--

I put it, like a small mountain range,

into a knapsack, and I took it out

of the city, and I let it

 

down into the dark pond, into

the cool water,

and the light of the lilies,

to live.

 

 

 

from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

by Mary Oliver

Penguin Random House, 2020  

 

 

What Shall I Pack in the Box Marked "Summer" (Monday Poem)

 by Bobbi Katz

 

 

A handful of wind that I caught with a kite

A firefly's flame in the dark of night

The green grass of June that I tasted with toes

The flowers I knew from the tip of my nose

The clink of the ice cubes in pink lemonade

The fourth of July Independence parade!

 The sizzle of hot dogs, the fizzle of coke

Some pickles and mustard and barbecue smoke

The print of my fist in the palm of my mitt,

As I watched for the batter to strike out or hit

The splash of the water, the top-to-toe cool

Of a stretch-and-kick trip through a blue swimming pool

The tangle of night songs that slipped through my screen

Of crickets and insects too small to be seen

The seed pods that formed on the flowers to say

That summer was packing her treasures away.

 

 

 

from The Family Read-Aloud HolidayTreasury

selected by Alice Low

Little, Brown & Co, 1991   

 

Sleeping in the Forest (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver 

 

 

I thought the earth remembered me, 
she took me back so tenderly, 
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets 
full of lichens and seeds. 

I slept as never before, a stone on the riverbed, 
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars 
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths 
among the branches of the perfect trees. 

All night I heard the small kingdoms 
breathing around me, the insects, 
and the birds who do their work in the darkness. 

All night I rose and fell, as if in water, 
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning 
I had vanished at least a dozen times 
into something better. 

from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

by Mary Oliver

Penguin Random House, 2020