Oh, Mary Oliver. “The linen of words” is pretty great but nothing like your pond.
Work
by Mary Oliver
How beautiful
this morning
was Pasture Pond.
It had lain in the dark, all night,
catching the rain
on its broad back.
All day I work
with the linen of words
and the pins of punctuation
all day I hang out
over a desk
grinding my teeth
staring.
Then I sleep.
Then I come out of the house,
even before the sun is up,
and walk back through the pinewoods
to Pasture Pond.
I last posted this just over two years ago, when the ‘rona was new and terrifying and we’d just had an earthquake. I’m worried about different things now but it’s still soothing. One of Mary’s best.
I Worried
I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.
(From Swan: Poems and Prose Poems)
Jesus CHRIST, as if the news every day about a global pandemic weren’t bad enough, Salt Lake was hit with a 5.7 earthquake this morning. I’ve never felt one that strong and, as my friend said, “I didn’t know my house could move like that, and I don’t like it.”
So! Let’s read some Mary Oliver in addition to using ALL of our anxiety-coping tools. Because I think this is all of us right now, worrying:
I Worried
I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.
(From Swan: Poems and Prose Poems)
More Mary Oliver, because she is great and because we’ve had the windows open at night and I can hear the birds in the morning.
What Gorgeous Thing
by Mary Oliver
I do not know what gorgeous thing
the bluebird keeps saying,
his voice easing out of his throat,
beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
whatever it is. Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
in the world that is without
questions that can’t and probably
never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.
From The Atlantic recently, here’s a short essay appreciating Mary Oliver and the art of noticing:
The piece concludes with a sentence that implants itself in the brain, because it is, in fact, so far upstream from the way we live: “Attention is the beginning of devotion.” And, of course, this is so. The unnoticed can’t possibly be loved. Certain critics liked to trash Oliver as unsophisticated. But her simplicity was naked display of the elemental: Dilate, she insisted, because a world worthy of attachment exists outside ourselves, and the alternative is numbness and narcissism.
From Mary Oliver, who we can always count on:
I Worried
I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.
(From Swan: Poems and Prose Poems)
I Ask Percy How I Should Live My Life
by Mary Oliver
Love, love, love, says Percy.
And hurry as fast as you can
along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.
Then, go to sleep.
Give up your body heat, your beating heart.
Then, trust.
(Mary and her dog, Percy)
Trust Mary Oliver to get the words so right. This is from “White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field.”
These last few weeks before the time change, when the mornings are so dark until almost 8:00, are tough. (The weeks after the time change are also tough because suddenly 7:00 pm feels like midnight because it’s been dark for hours. I think we have a theme here.)
Here’s a poem to fit that theme.
Lines Written In The Days of Growing Darkness
by Mary Oliver
Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends
into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out
to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married
to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but
what else will do
if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?
So let us go on, cheerfully enough,
this and every crisping day,
though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.
From Mary Oliver’s new book Upstream. (This was from her Faceboko page; I don’t own the book. Yet.) As we slide into the darkest part of the year, keep hoping. Keep fighting.