Roses, Late Summer

What happens

to the leaves after

they turn red and golden and fall

away? What happens

to the singing birds

when they can't sing

any longer? What happens

to their quick wings?

Do you think there is any

personal heaven

for any of us?

Do you think anyone,

the other side of that darkness,

will call to us, meaning us?

Beyond the trees

the foxes keep teaching their children

to live in the valley.

So they never seem to vanish, they are always there

in the blossom of light

that stands up every morning

in the dark sky.

And over one more set of hills,

along the sea,

the last roses have opened their factories of sweetness

and are giving it back to the world.

If I had another life

I would want to spend it all on some

unstinting happiness.

I would be a fox, or a tree

full of waving branches.

I wouldn't mind being a rose

in a field of roses.

Fear has not yet occurred to them, nor ambition.

Reason they have not yet thought of.

Neither do they ask how long they must be roses, and then what.

Or any other foolish question.

~ Mary Oliver

Answers

If I envy anyone it must be

My grandmother in a long ago

Green summer, who hurried

Between kitchen and orchard on small

Uneducated feet, and took easily

All shining fruits into her eager hands.

That summer I hurried too, wakened

To books and music and circling philosophies.

I sat in the kitchen sorting through volumes of answers

That could not solve the mystery of the trees.

My grandmother stood among her kettles and ladles.

Smiling, in faulty grammar,

She praised my fortune and urged my lofty career.

So to please her I studied-but I will remember always

How she poured confusion out, how she cooled and labeled

All the wild sauces of the brimming year.

~ Mary Oliver

From: 'New and Selected Poems'

‎

"I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed."

-Mary Oliver

"All things are inventions of holiness -- some more rascally than others."

--Mary Oliver

“Not This Not That”

Not anything,

not the eastern wind whose other name

is rain,

nor the burning heats of the dunes

at the crown of summer,

not the ticks that new, ferocious populace,

not the President who loves blood,

nor the governmental agencies that love money,

will alter

my love for you, my friend and my beloved,

or for you, oh ghosts of Emerson and Whitman,

or for you, oh blue sky of summer morning,

that makes me role in a barrel of gratitude

down hills,

or for you, oldest of friends: hope;

or for you, newest of friends: faith;

or for you, silliest and dearest of surprises, my

own life.

~ Mary Oliver

From Red Bird – Poems by 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 not half-perfect?  Let me

keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

which is mostly rejoicing 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 sleep dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever.

Mary Oliver – Thirst

Morning Poem

Every morning

the world

is created.

Under the orange

sticks of the sun

the heaped

ashes of the night

turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---

and the ponds appear

like black cloth

on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.

If it is your nature

to be happy

you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination

alighting everywhere.

And if your spirit

carries within it

the thorn

that is heavier than lead ---

if it's all you can do

to keep on trudging ---

there is still

somewhere deep within you

a beast shouting that the earth

is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies

is a prayer heard and answered

lavishly,

every morning,

whether or not

you have ever dared to be happy,

whether or not

you have ever dared to pray.

~ Mary Oliver

May I never not be frisky.

May I never not be risqué.

May my ashes, when you have them, friend, and give them to the ocean,

Leap in the froth of waves,

Still loving movement,

Still ready, beyond all else,

To dance for the world.

~ Mary Oliver

“

When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. 

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.”

~ Mary Oliver

"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."

~ Mary Oliver

"There is only one question: how to love this world."

 ~ Mary Oliver

‎

In the Storm

Some black ducks

were shrugged up

on the shore.

It was snowing

hard, from the east,

and the sea

was in disorder.

Then some sanderlings,

five inches long

with beaks like wire,

flew in,

snowflakes on their backs,

and settled

in a row

behind the ducks --

whose backs were also

covered with snow --

so close

they were all but touching,

they were all but under

the roof of the duck's tails,

so the wind, pretty much,

blew over them.

They stayed that way, motionless,

for maybe an hour,

then the sanderlings,

each a handful of feathers,

shifted, and were blown away

out over the water

which was still raging.

But, somehow,

they came back

and again the ducks,

like a feathered hedge,

let them

crouch there, and live.

If someone you didn't know

told you this,

as I am telling you this,

would you believe it?

Belief isn't always easy.

But this much I have learned --

if not enough else --

to live with my eyes open.

I know what everyone wants

is a miracle.

This wasn't a miracle.

Unless, of course, kindness --

as now and again

some rare person has suggested --

is a miracle.

As surely it is.

~ Mary Oliver

"To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work."

~ Mary Oliver

"Listen... are you breathing just a little, and calling it life?"

~Mary Oliver

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness,

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, "Stay awhile."

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,

"and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine."

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Thirst)