The Hermit Crab (Monday Poem)

by Mary Oliver

 

 

Once I looked inside

    the darkness

        of a shell folded like a pastry,

            and there was a fancy face--

 

or almost a face--

    it turned away

        and frisked up its brawny forearms

            so quickly

 

against the light

    and my looking in

        I scarcely had time to see it,

            gleaming

 

under the pure white roof

    of old calcium.

        When I set it down, it hurried

            along the tideline

 

of the sea,

    which was slashing along as usual,

        shouting and hissing

            toward the future,

 

turning its back

    with every tide on the past,

        leaving the shore littered

            every morning

 

with more ornaments of death--

    what a pearly rubble

        from which to choose a house

            like a white flower--

 

and what a rebellion

    to leap into it

        and hold on,

            connecting everything,

 

the past to the future--

    which is of course the miracle--

        which is the only argument there is 

            against the sea.

 

 

 

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

 

     

Storage (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

When I moved from one house to another

there were many things I had no room

for. What does one do? I rented a storage

space. And filled it. Years passed.

Occasionally I went there and looked in,

but nothing happened, not a single

twinge of the heart.

As I grew older the things I cared 

about grew fewer, but were more

important. So one day I undid the lock

and called the trash man. He took

everything.

I felt like the little donkey when

his burden is finally lifted. Things!

Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful

fire! More room in your heart for love,

for the trees! For the birds who own

nothing -- the reason they can fly.

 

 

 

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

 

I Dream a World (Monday Poem)

by Langston Hughes

 

 

I dream a world where man

No other man will scorn,

Where love will bless the earth

And peace its paths adorn

I dream a world where all

Will know sweet freedom's way,

Where greed no longer saps the soul

Nor avarice blights our day.

A world I dream where black or white,

Whatever race you be,

Will share the bounties of the earth

And every man is free,

Where wretchedness will hang its head

And joy, like a pearl, 

Attends the needs of all mankind-

Of such I dream, my world!

 

 

 from https://allpoetry.com/I-Dream-A-World

First Snow (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

The snow

began here

this morning and all day

continued, its white 

rhetoric everywhere

calling us back to why, how,

whence  such beauty and what

the meaning; such

an oracular fever! flowing

past windows, an energy it seemed

would never ebb, never settle

less than lovely! and only now,

deep into night,

it has finally ended.

The silence

is immense,

and the heavens still hold

a million candles; nowhere

the familiar things:

stars, the moon,

the darkness we expect

and nightly turn from. Trees

glitter like castles

of ribbons, the broad fields

smolder with light, a passing

creekbed lies

heaped with shining hills;

and though the questions

that have assailed us all day

remain--not a single

answer has been found--

walking out now

into the silence and the light

under the trees,

and through the fields,

feels like one.

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

 

 

Praying (Monday Poem)

 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

The Loon (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

 Not quite four a.m., when the rapture of being alive

strikes me from sleep, and I rise

from the comfortable bed and go

to another room, where my books are lined up

in their neat and colorful rows. How

magical they are! I choose one

and open it. Soon

I have wandered in over the waves of the words

 to the temple of thought.

                                            And then I hear

outside, over the actual waves, the small,

perfect voice of the loon. He is also awake,

and with his heavy head uplifted he calls out

to the fading moon, to the pink flush

swelling in the east that, soon,

will become the long, reasonable day.

                                                           Inside the house

it is still dark, except for the pool of lamploght

in which I am sitting.

                                    I do not close the book.

Neither, for a long while, do I read. on.

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

When Death Comes (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn,

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

 

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When its over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When its over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017