Mary Oliver: "I Have Decided"

I have decided to find myself a home in the mountains, somewhere high up where one learns to live peacefully in the cold and the silence. It’s said that in such a place certain revelations may be discovered. That what the spirit reaches for may be eventually felt, if not exactly understood. Slowly, no doubt. I’m not talking about a vacation.

Of course, at the same time I mean to stay exactly where I am.

Are you following me?



"I Have Decided" by  Mary Oliver. Text as published in A Thousand Mornings: Poems (Penguin Press, 2012).

Art credit: "Blur biker," photograph taken on December 3, 2013, by Thomas Toft.