Mary Oliver
The Rapture
All summer I wandered the fields That were thickening Every morning, Every rainfall, With weeds and blossoms, With the long loops Of the shimmering, and the extravagant- Pale as flames they rose And fell
Egrets
Where the path closed down and over, through the scumbled leaves, fallen branches, Through the knotted catbrier, I kept going. Finally I could not save my arms from thorns; soon The mosquitoes smelled me,
Poem (The spirit likes to dress up…)
The spirit likes to dress up like this: ten fingers, ten toes, Shoulders, and all the rest at night in the black branches, in the morning In the blue branches of the world. It
Music
I tied together A few slender reeds, cut Notches to breathe across and made Such music you stood Shock still and then Followed as I wandered growing Moment by moment Slant-eyes and shaggy, my
One
The mosquito is so small It takes almost nothing to ruin it. Each leaf, the same. And the black ant, hurrying. So many lives, so many fortunes! Every morning, I walk softly and with
A Meeting
She steps into the dark swamp Where the long wait ends. The secret slippery package Drops to the weeds. She leans her long neck and tongues it Between breaths slack with exhaustion And after
Peonies
This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready To break my heart As the sun rises, As the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers And they open – Pools
Snow Geese
Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last! What a task To ask Of anything, or anyone, Yet it is ours, And not by the century or the year, but by the
Little Owl Who Lives in the Orchard
His beak could open a bottle, And his eyes – when he lifts their soft lids – Go on reading something Just beyond your shoulder – Blake, maybe, Or the Book of Revelation. Never
That Sweet Flute John Clare
That sweet flute John Clare; That broken branch Eddy Whitman; Christopher Smart, in the press of blazing electricity; My uncle the suicide; Woolf, on her way to the river; Wolf, of the sorrowful songs;
Marengo
Out of the sump rise the marigolds. From the rim of the marsh, muslin with mosquitoes, Rises the egret, in his cloud-cloth. Through the soft rain, like mist, and mica, The withered acres of
Why I Wake Early
Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who made the morning And spread it over the fields And into the faces of the tulips And the nodding morning glories, And into the windows of,
Black Oaks
Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary, Or even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance And comfort. Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays
Wild Geese
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
The Humpbacks
Listen, whatever it is you try To do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you Like the dreams of your body, Its spirit Longing to fly while the dead-weight bones Toss their dark