Carrying the Snake to the Garden (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

In the cellar

was the smallest snake

I have ever seen.

It coiled itself

in a corner

and watched me

with eyes

like two little stars

set into coal,

and a tail

that quivered.

One step

of my foot

and it fled

like a running shoelace,

but a scoop of the wrist

and I had it

in my hand.

I was sorry

for the fear,

so I hurried

upstairs and out the kitchen door

to the warm grass

and the sunlight

and the garden.

It turned and turned

in my hand

but when I put it down

it didn't move.

I thought

it was going to flow

up my leg

and into my pocket.

I thought, for a moment,

as it lifted its face,

it was going to sing.

And then it was gone.

 by Mary Oliver

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

Wild Geese (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

    love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting---

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

 

 

 

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017 

Backyard (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

I had no time to haul out all

the dead stuff so it hung, limp

or dry, wherever the wind swung it

over or down or across. All summer

it stayed that way, untrimmed, and

thickened. The paths grew

damp and uncomfortable and mossy until

nobody could get through but a mouse or a 

shadow. Blackberries, ferns, leaves, litter

totally without direction management

supervision. The birds loved it.

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

Fireflies (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver

 

 

At Blackwater

fireflies

are not even a dime a dozen--

they are free,

 

and each floats and turns

among the branches of the oaks

and the swamp azaleas

looking for another

 

as, who doesn't?

Oh, blessings

on the intimacy

inside fruition,

 

be it foxes

or the fireflies

or the dampness inside the petals

of a thousand flowers.

 

Though Eden is lost

its loveliness

remains in the heart

and the imagination;

 

he would take her

in a boat

over the dark water;

she would take him

 

to an island she knows

where the blue flag grows wild

and the grass is deep,

where the birds

 

perch together,

feather to feather,

on the bough.

And the fireflies,

 

blinking their little lights,

hurry toward one another.

And the world continues,

God willing.

 

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

 

Passing the Unworked Field (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

Queen Anne's lace

    is hardly 

        prized but

all the same it isn't

    idle look

                how it

    stands straight on it

thin stems how it

    scrubs its white faces

        with the

rags of the sun how it

            makes all the 

                loveliness

                    it can.

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

Three Things to Remember (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver

 

 

As long as you're dancing, you can

    break the rules.

Sometimes breaking the rules is just

    extending the rules.

 

Sometimes there are no rules.

 

 

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017 

I Go Down to the Shore (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver

 

 

I go down to the shore in the morning

and depending on the hour the waves

are rolling in or moving out,

and I say, oh, I am miserable,

what shall---

what should I do? And the sea says

in its lovely voice:

Excuse me, I have work to do.

 

 

 

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017