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

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

Mindful (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

Every day

    I see or hear

        something

            that more or less

kills me

    with delight,

        that leaves me

            like a needle

in the haystack

    of light,

        It is what I was born for--

            to look, to listen,

to lose myself

    inside this soft world--

        to instruct myself

            over and over

in joy,

    and acclamation.

        Nor am I talking 

            about the exceptinal,

 

the fearful, the dreadful,

    the very extravagant--

        but of the ordinary,

            the common, the very drab,

 

the daily presentations.

    Oh, good scholar,

        I say to myself,

            how can you help

 

but grow wise

    with such teachings

        as these--

            the untrimmable light

 

of the world,     

    the ocean's shine,

        the prayers that are made

            out of grass?

 

 

 

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

 

Poppies (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

The poppies send up their

orange flares; swaying

in the wind, their congregations

are a levitation

of bright dust, of thin

and lacy leaves.

There isn't a place

in this world that doesn't

sooner or later drown

in the indigos of darkness,

but now, for a while,

the roughage

shines like a miracle

as it floats above everything

with its yellow hair.

Of course nothing stops the cold,

black, curved blade

from looking forward--

of course

loss is the great lesson.

But also I say this: that light

is an invitation

to happiness,

and that happiness,

when it's done right,

is a kind of holiness,

palpable and redemptive.

Inside the bright fields,

touched by their rough and spongy gold,.

I am washed and washed

in the river

of earthly delight--

and what are you going to do--

what can you do

about it--

deep, blue night?

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017

Goldenrod (Monday Poem)

 by Mary Oliver

On roadsides,

    in fall fields,

        in rumpy bunches,

            saffron and orange and pale gold,

in little towers,

    soft as mash,

        sneeze-bringers and seed-bearers,

            full of bees and yellow beads and perfect flowerlets

and orange butterflies.

    I don't suppose

        much notice comes of it, except for honey,

            and how it heartens the heart with its

blank blaze.

    I don't suppose anything loves it except, perhaps,

        the rocky voids

            filled by its dumb dazzle.

For myself,

    I was just passing by, when the wind flared

       and the blossoms rustled,

            and the glittering pandemonium

leaned on me.

    I was just minding my own business

        when I found myself on their straw hillsides,

            citron and butter-colored,

and was happy, and why not?

    Are not the difficult labors of our lives

        full of dark hours?

            And what has consciousness come to anyway, so far,

that is far better than these light-filled bodies?

    All day

        on their airy backbones

            they toss in the wind,

they bend as thought it was natural and godly to bend,

    they rise in a stiff sweetness,

        in the pure peace of giving

            one's gold away.

from Devotions: the Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

Penguin, 2017