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 

Loneliness (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver

I too have known loneliness.

I too have known what it is to feel

    misunderstood,

    rejected, and suddenly

not at all beautiful.

Oh, mother earth,

    your comfort is great, your arms never withhold.

It has saved my life to know this.

Your rivers flowing, your roses opening in the morning.

Oh, motions of tenderness!

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

August Heat (Monday Poem)

 Anonymous

 

 

In August, when the days are hot,

I like to find a shady spot,

And hardly move a single bit --

And sit --

and sit --

and sit --

and sit!

 

 

 

from Sing a Song of Seasons: 

A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year

Selected by Fiona Waters

illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon

Candlewick Press, 2018