whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
Jan. 18th, 2019 07:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
graveexcitementmy favorite poet, Mary Oliver, died yesterday at the age of 83. in her memory, i will share with you some of my favorite poems of hers. these are all from her collection "Dream Work." her poetry brings tears to my eyes. her poetry makes me feel like i can keep going.
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 body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
DOGFISH
Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing
kept flickering in with the tide
and looking around.
Black as a fisherman’s boot,
with a white belly.
If you asked for a picture I would have to draw a smile
under the perfectly round eyes and above the chin,
which was rough
as a thousand sharpened nails.
And you know
what a smile means,
don’t you?
*
I wanted the past to go away, I wanted
to leave it, like another country; I wanted
my life to close, and open
like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
where it falls
down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,
whoever I was, I was
alive
for a little while.
*
It was evening, and no longer summer.
Three small fish, I don’t know what they were,
huddled in the highest ripples
as it came swimming in again, effortless, the whole body
one gesture, one black sleeve
that could fit easily around
the bodies of three small fish.
*
Also I wanted
to be able to love. And we all know
how that one goes,
don’t we?
Slowly
*
the dogfish tore open the soft basins of water.
*
You don’t want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen
to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.
And anyway it’s the same old story —
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.
Mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.
And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.
*
And look! look! look! I think those little fish
better wake up and dash themselves away
from the hopeless future that is
bulging toward them.
*
And probably,
if they don’t waste time
looking for an easier world,
they can do it.
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.
warning for this next one: suicide
MEMBERS OF THE TRIBE
Ahead of me
they were lighting their fires
in the dark forests
of death.
Should I name them?
Their names make a long branch of sound.
You know them.
*
I know
death is the fascinating snake
under the leaves, sliding
and sliding; I know
the heart loves him too, can't
turn away, can't
break the spell. Everything
wants to enter the slow thickness,
aches to be peaceful finally and at any cost.
Wants to be stone.
*
That time
I wanted to die
somebody
was playing the piano
in the room with me.
It was Mozart.
It was Beethoven.
It was Bruckner.
In the kitchen
a man with one ear
was painting a flower.
*
Later,
in the asylum,
I began to pick through the red rivers
of confusion;
I began to take apart
the deep stitches
of nightmares.
That was good, human work.
This had nothing to do with laying down a path of words
that could throttle,
or soften,
the human heart.
Meanwhile,
Yeats, in love and anger,
stood beside his fallen friends;
Whitman kept falling
through the sleeve of ego.
In the back fields,
beyond the locked windows,
a young man who couldn't live long and knew it
was listening to a plain brown bird
that kept singing in the deep leaves,
that kept urging from him
some wild and careful words.
You know that
important and eloquent defense
of sanity.
*
I forgive them
their unhappiness,
I forgive them
for walking out of the world.
But I don't forgive them
for turning their faces away,
for taking off their veils
and dancing for death —
for hurtling
toward oblivion
on the sharp blades
of their exquisite poems, saying:
this is the way.
*
I was of course, all that time
coming along
behind them, and listening
for advice.
*
And the man who merely
washed Michaelangelo's brushes, kneeling
on the damp bricks, staring
every day at the colors pouring out of them,
lived to be a hundred years old.
THE JOURNEY
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.
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 body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
DOGFISH
Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing
kept flickering in with the tide
and looking around.
Black as a fisherman’s boot,
with a white belly.
If you asked for a picture I would have to draw a smile
under the perfectly round eyes and above the chin,
which was rough
as a thousand sharpened nails.
And you know
what a smile means,
don’t you?
*
I wanted the past to go away, I wanted
to leave it, like another country; I wanted
my life to close, and open
like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
where it falls
down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,
whoever I was, I was
alive
for a little while.
*
It was evening, and no longer summer.
Three small fish, I don’t know what they were,
huddled in the highest ripples
as it came swimming in again, effortless, the whole body
one gesture, one black sleeve
that could fit easily around
the bodies of three small fish.
*
Also I wanted
to be able to love. And we all know
how that one goes,
don’t we?
Slowly
*
the dogfish tore open the soft basins of water.
*
You don’t want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen
to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.
And anyway it’s the same old story —
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.
Mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.
And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.
*
And look! look! look! I think those little fish
better wake up and dash themselves away
from the hopeless future that is
bulging toward them.
*
And probably,
if they don’t waste time
looking for an easier world,
they can do it.
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.
warning for this next one: suicide
MEMBERS OF THE TRIBE
Ahead of me
they were lighting their fires
in the dark forests
of death.
Should I name them?
Their names make a long branch of sound.
You know them.
*
I know
death is the fascinating snake
under the leaves, sliding
and sliding; I know
the heart loves him too, can't
turn away, can't
break the spell. Everything
wants to enter the slow thickness,
aches to be peaceful finally and at any cost.
Wants to be stone.
*
That time
I wanted to die
somebody
was playing the piano
in the room with me.
It was Mozart.
It was Beethoven.
It was Bruckner.
In the kitchen
a man with one ear
was painting a flower.
*
Later,
in the asylum,
I began to pick through the red rivers
of confusion;
I began to take apart
the deep stitches
of nightmares.
That was good, human work.
This had nothing to do with laying down a path of words
that could throttle,
or soften,
the human heart.
Meanwhile,
Yeats, in love and anger,
stood beside his fallen friends;
Whitman kept falling
through the sleeve of ego.
In the back fields,
beyond the locked windows,
a young man who couldn't live long and knew it
was listening to a plain brown bird
that kept singing in the deep leaves,
that kept urging from him
some wild and careful words.
You know that
important and eloquent defense
of sanity.
*
I forgive them
their unhappiness,
I forgive them
for walking out of the world.
But I don't forgive them
for turning their faces away,
for taking off their veils
and dancing for death —
for hurtling
toward oblivion
on the sharp blades
of their exquisite poems, saying:
this is the way.
*
I was of course, all that time
coming along
behind them, and listening
for advice.
*
And the man who merely
washed Michaelangelo's brushes, kneeling
on the damp bricks, staring
every day at the colors pouring out of them,
lived to be a hundred years old.
THE JOURNEY
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-19 02:26 am (UTC)"Wild Geese" made me cry...in a good way. Thank you so much for sharing.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-19 02:50 am (UTC)Whoever you are, no matter how lonely... well, there's a reason i made that the post title.
you're very welcome.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-19 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-20 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-19 09:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-20 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-22 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-22 08:08 pm (UTC)