Mary Oliver: "Clam"

Each one is a small life, but sometimes long, if its
place in the universe is not found out. Like us, they
have a heart and a stomach; they know hunger, and
probably a little satisfaction too. Do not mock them
for their gentleness, they have a muscle that loves
being alive. They pull away from the light. They pull
down. They hold themselves together. They refuse to
open.

But sometimes they lose their place and are tumbled
shoreward in a storm. Then they pant, they fill
with sand, they have no choice but must open the
smallest crack. Then the fire of the world touches
them. Perhaps, on such days, they too begin the
terrible effort of thinking, of wondering who, and
what, and why. If they can bury themselves again in
the sand they will. If not, they are sure to perish,
though not quickly. They also have resources beyond
the flesh; they also try very hard not to die.

"Clam" by Mary Oliver. Text as published in What Do We Know: Poems and Prose Poems (Da Capo Press, 2002).

Art credit: "Winter Clam Scene," photograph taken on 1/08/2013 by Roger Golub. Caption: "Ice crystals on Butter Clams."

Curator's note: Have you given me the gift of your wisdom yet? Please take my two-minute survey before January 1. It will help me (and any potential publishers) decide upon an anthology of mindfulness poetry.

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.

Mary Oliver: "To Begin With, the Sweet Grass"

                                             1.

Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat
    of the sweet grass?
Will the owl bite off its own wings?
Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air or
    forget to sing?
Will the rivers run upstream?

Behold, I say—behold
the reliability and the finery and the teachings
    of this gritty earth gift.

                                             2.
Eat bread and understand comfort.
Drink water, and understand delight.
Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets
    are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds
who are drinking the sweetness, who are
    thrillingly gluttonous.

For one thing leads to another.
Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.

And someone's face, whom you love, will be as a star
both intimate and ultimate,
and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.

And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
beautiful bodies of your lungs.

                                             3.
The witchery of living
is my whole conversation
with you, my darlings.
All I can tell you is what I know.


Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.


It's more than bones.
It's more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It's more than the beating of the single heart.
It's praising.
It's giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life—just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe
   still another.

                                             4.
Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,
the dancer, the potter,
to make me a begging bowl
which I believe
my soul needs.

And if I come to you,
to the door of your comfortable house
with unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails,
will you put something into it?

I would like to take this chance.
I would like to give you this chance.

                                             5.
We do one thing or another; we stay the same, or we
   change.
Congratulations, if
   you have changed.

                                             6.
Let me ask you this.
Do you also think that beauty exists for some
   fabulous reason?

And, if you have not been enchanted by this adventure—
   your life—
what would do for you?

                                             7.
What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements,
   though with difficulty.
I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.
I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.
They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment
somehow or another).

And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.




"To Begin With, the Sweet Grass" by  Mary Oliver. Text as published in Evidence: Poems (Beacon Press, 2010).

Curator's note: A very long poem today, but I didn't have the heart to break it into excerpts. Please take time with it. Savor it. The "friend Paulus" to whom Oliver refers is Paulus Berensohn, dancer, potter, teacher, ecologist.... Read more about him, or watch a trailer from a documentary about his life and work.

Art credit: Untitled photograph of Paulus Berensohn holding one of his beautiful clay bowls, by True Kelly (digitally enhanced by curator).

Mary Oliver: "The Faces of Deer"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When for too long I don't go deep enough
into the woods to see them, they begin to
enter my dreams. Yes, there they are, in the
pinewoods of my inner life. I want to live a life
full of modesty and praise. Each hoof of each
animal makes the sign of a heart as it touches
then lifts away from the ground. Unless you
believe that heaven is very near, how will you
find it? Their eyes are pools in which one
would be content, on any summer afternoon,
to swim away through the door of the world.
Then, love and its blessing. Then: heaven.

"The Faces of Deer" by  Mary Oliver. Text as published in New and Selected Poems: Volume Two (Beacon Press, 2007).

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.

Mary Oliver: "Song of the Builders"

On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God—

a worthy pastime.
Near me, I saw
a single cricket;
it was moving the grains of the hillside

this way and that way.
How great was its energy,
how humble its effort.
Let us hope

it will always be like this,
each of us going on
in our inexplicable ways
building the universe.

 
"Song of the Builders" by Mary Oliver. Text as published in Why I Wake Early: New Poems (Beacon Press, 2005).

Art credit: "Woman bare feet in flower field," photograph taken in Vanoise, French Alps, by Jeff Maion.

Mary Oliver: "The Fist"

There are days

when the sun goes down

like a fist,

though of course

if you see anything

in the heavens

in this way

you had better get

your eyes checked

or, better, still,

your diminished spirit.

The heavens

have no fist,

or wouldn't they have been

shaking it

for a thousand years now,

and even

longer than that,

at the dull, brutish

ways of mankind—

heaven's own

creation?

Instead: such patience!

Such willingness

to let us continue!

To hear,

little by little,

the voices—

only, so far, in

pockets of the world—

suggesting

the possibilities

of peace?

Keep looking.

Behold, how the fist opens

with invitation.



"The Fist" by Mary Oliver. Text as published in Thirst: Poems (Beacon Press, 2007).

Art credit: "Hand of Peace," photograph taken on September 12, 2009, by Aidan McRae Thomson. Caption: "Peace sculpture on the seafront in Kusadasi [Turkey] town centre in the form of a giant white concrete hand releasing birds."

Mary Oliver: "Straight Talk from Fox"

Listen says fox it is music to run

  over the hills to lick

dew from the leaves to nose along

  the edges of the ponds to smell the fat

ducks in their bright feathers but

  far out, safe in their rafts of

sleep. It is like

  music to visit the orchard, to find

the vole sucking the sweet of the apple, or the

  rabbit with his fast-beating heart. Death itself

is a music. Nobody has ever come close to

  writing it down, awake or in a dream. It cannot

be told. It is flesh and bones

  changing shape and with good cause, mercy

is a little child beside such an invention. It is

  music to wander the black back roads

outside of town no one awake or wondering

  if anything miraculous is ever going to

happen, totally dumb to the fact of every

  moment's miracle. Don't think I haven't

peeked into windows. I see you in all your seasons

  making love, arguing, talking about God

as if he were an idea instead of the grass,

  instead of the stars, the rabbit caught

in one good teeth-whacking hit and brought

  home to the den. What I am, and I know it, is

responsible, joyful, thankful. I would not

  give my life for a thousand of yours.

"Straight Talk from Fox" by Mary Oliver, from Red Bird: Poems (Beacon Press, 2008).

Art credit: "Fox in the Snow," by unknown photographer, from Wallfon.

Mary Oliver: "The Other Kingdoms"

Consider the other kingdoms. The
trees, for example, with their mellow-sounding
titles: oak, aspen, willow.
Or the snow, for which the peoples of the north
have dozens of words to describe its
different arrivals. Or the creatures, with their
thick fur, their shy and wordless gaze. Their
infallible sense of what their lives
are meant to be. Thus the world
grows rich, grows wild, and you too,
grow rich, grow sweetly wild, as you too
were born to be.



"The Other Kingdoms" by Mary Oliver, from The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays. © Beacon Press, 2008.

Art credit: "Bison do not see very well even though they have large eyes," photograph by Michael Graber © 2009 (originally color).

Mary Oliver: "Fall Song"

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries—roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay—how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.



"Fall Song" by Mary Oliver, from American Primitive. © Little, Brown and Company, 1983.  

Art credit: "Fallen acorns in autumn at Wistmans Wood," image by unknown photographer presented by bbc.co.uk.

Mary Oliver: "Mysteries, Yes"

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
    to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
    mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
    in allegiance with gravity
        while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds will
    never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
    scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
    who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
    "Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
 and bow their heads.



"Mysteries, Yes" by Mary Oliver, from Evidence: Poems. © Beacon Press, 2010.

Art credit: "Waterfall on the Trail of the Cedars in Glacier National Park, Montana," photograph taken in July, 2014, by curator Phyllis Cole-Dai.

Mary Oliver: "Heavy"

                              That time
                              I thought I could not
                              go any closer to grief
                              without dying

                              I went closer,
                              and I did not die.
                              Surely God
                              had His hand in this,

                              as well as friends.
                              Still, I was bent,
                              and my laughter,
                              as the poets said,

                              was nowhere to be found.
                              Then said my friend Daniel
                              (brave even among lions),
                              “It’s not the weight you carry

                              but how you carry it—
                              books, bricks, grief—
                              it’s all in the way
                              you embrace it, balance it, carry it

                              when you cannot, and would not,
                              put it down.”
                              So I went practicing.
                              Have you noticed?

                              Have you heard
                              the laughter
                              that comes, now and again,
                              out of my startled mouth?

                              How I linger
                              to admire, admire, admire
                              the things of this world
                              that are kind, and maybe

                              also troubled—
                              roses in the wind,
                              the sea geese on the steep waves,
                              a love
                              to which there is no reply?


"Heavy" by Mary Oliver, from Thirst: Poems. © Beacon Press, 2007.

Photography credit: "Typical Vietnamese figure on Mui Ne dunes. Mui Ne, Vietnam," by QY Luong. © 2012 QT Luong/Terragalleria.com.

Mary Oliver: "The Sun"

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone—
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance—
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love—
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed—
or have you too
turned from this world—

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

"The Sun" by Mary Oliver, from New and Selected Poems: Volume One. © Beacon Press, 2004.

Image credit: "Clear Dreams," painting by Osnat Tzadok

(originally color).

Mary Oliver: "Winter and the Nuthatch"

Once or twice and maybe again, who knows,
the timid nuthatch will come to me
if I stand still, with something good to eat in my hand.
The first time he did it
he landed smack on his belly, as though
the legs wouldn't cooperate. The next time
he was bolder. Then he became absolutely
wild about those walnuts.

But there was a morning I came late and, guess what,
the nuthatch was flying into a stranger's hand.
To speak plainly, I felt betrayed.
I wanted to say: Mister,
that nuthatch and I have a relationship.
It took hours of standing in the snow
before he would drop from the tree and trust my fingers.
But I didn't say anything.

Nobody owns the sky or the trees.
Nobody owns the hearts of birds.
Still, being human and partial therefore to my own successes—
though not resentful of others fashioning theirs—

I'll come tomorrow, I believe, quite early.

"Winter and the Nuthatch" by Mary Oliver, from Red Bird: Poems. © Beacon Press, 2008.  

Photography credit: "A White-breasted Nuthatch surprised my wife with a visit," detail from an image by fotogordo (originally color).

 

Mary Oliver: "Fall Song"

Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back

from the particular island
of this summer, this Now, that now is nowhere

except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle

of unobservable mysteries—roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This

I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay—how everything lives, shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.

"Fall Song" by Mary Oliver, from American Primitive. © Back Bay Books, 1983.  

Photography credit: "Man Walking Through Dry Autumn Leaves on a Cold Day," by Stephen McCluskey (originally color).


 

Mary Oliver: "Praying"

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.

"Praying" by Mary Oliver, from Thirst: Poems. © Beacon Press, 2007.

Photography credit: Times-Picayune archive (originally color).



 

Mary Oliver: "August"

When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high
branches, reaching
my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming
the black honey of summer
into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark
creeks that run by there is
this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is
this happy tongue.

"August" by Mary Oliver, from American Primitive. © Back Bay Books, 1983.

Photography credit: Corbis (originally color).



 

Mary Oliver: "Messenger"

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
     equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
     keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
     astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
     and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
     to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
     that we live forever.

"Messenger" by Mary Oliver, from Thirst: Poems. © Beacon Press, 2007.

Photography credit: Unknown (originally color).


 

Mary Oliver: "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.

"I Worried" by Mary Oliver, from Swan: Poems and Prose Poems. © Beacon Press, 2010.

Image credit: detail of a mixed media painting entitled "Red Dress Dancing," by Anna Oneglia, © 2000 (originally color).

 

Mary Oliver: "Mornings at Blackwater"

For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond.
It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
the feet of ducks.

And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.

What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what will be, darling citizen.

So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.
And live
your life.

"Mornings at Blackwater" by Mary Oliver, from Red Bird: Poems of Mary Oliver. © Beacon Press, 2009.

Photograph: Detail from "Hands Cupping Water," by Ray Davis (originally color).