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
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