on my mind, for the last week

and today: the poet has died.

october

by mary oliver

1

there's this shape, black as the entrance to a cave.

a longing wells up in its throat

like a blossom

as it breathes slowly.

what does the world 

mean to you if you can't trust it

to go on shining when you're

not there? and there's 

a tree, long-fallen; once 

the bees flew to it, like a procession

of messengers, and filled it

with honey.

2

i said to the chickadee, singing his heart out in the 

     green pine tree:

little dazzler,

little song,

little mouthful.

3

the shape climbs up out of the curled grass. it

grunts into view. there is no measure

for the confidence at the bottom of its eyes ---

there is no telling

the suppleness of its shoulders as it turns

and yawns.

                      near the fallen tree

something -- a leaf snapped loose

from the branch and fluttering down -- tries to pull me

into its trap of attention.

4

it pulls me

into its trap of attention.

and when i turn again, the bear is gone.

5

look, hasn't my body already felt

like the body of a flower?

6

look, i want to love this world

as though it's the last chance i'm ever going to get

to be alive

and know it.

7

sometimes in late summer i won't touch anything, not

the flowers, not the blackberries

brimming in the thickets; i won't drink

from the pond; i won't name the birds or the trees;

i won't whisper my own name.

                                              one morning

the fox came down the hill, glittering and confident,

and didn't see me -- and i thought:

so this is the world.

i'm not in it.

it is beautiful.

one or two things

by mary oliver

1
don't bother me.
i've just
been born.

2
the butterfly's loping flight
carries it through the country of leaves
delicately, and well enough to get it
where it wants to go, wherever that is, stopping
here and there to fuzzle the damp throats
of flowers and the black mud; up
and down it swings, frenzied and aimless; and sometimes

for long delicious moments it is perfectly
lazy, riding motionless in the breeze on the soft talk
of some ordinary flower.

3
the god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things, i lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
crow voice,
frog voice; now,
he said, and now,

and never once mentioned forever,

4
which has nevertheless always been,
like a sharp iron hoof,
at the center of my mind.

5
one or two things are all you need
to travel over the blue pond, over the deep
roughage of the trees and through the stiff
flowers of lightning - some deep
memory of pleasure, some cutting
knowledge of pain.

6
but to lift the hoof!
for that you need
an idea.

7
for years and years i struggled
just to love my life. and then

the butterfly
rose, weightless, in the wind.
"don't love your life
too much," it said,

and vanished
into the world.

last days

by mary oliver

things are
     changing; things are starting to
          spin, snap, fly off into
               the blue sleeve of the long
                    afternoon. oh and ooh
come whistling out of the perished mouth
     of the grass, as things
turn soft, boil back
     into substance and hue. as everything,
          forgetting its own enchantment, whispers:
                i too love oblivion why not it is full
                      of second chances. now,
hiss the bright curls of the leaves. now!
     booms the muscle of the wind.

lightning

by mary oliver

the oaks shone
gaunt gold
on the lip
of the storm before
the wind rose,
the shapeless mouth
opened and began
its five-hour howl;
the lights
went out fast, branches
sidled over
the pitch of the roof, bounced
into the yard
that grew black
within minutes, except
for the lightning - the landscape
bulging forth like a quick
lesson in creation, then
thudding away. inside,
as always,
it was hard to tell
fear from excitement:
how sensual
the lightning's
poured stroke! and still,
what a fire and a risk!
as always the body
wants to hide,
wants to flow toward it - strives
to balance while
fear shouts,
excitement shouts, back
and forth - each
bolt a burning river
tearing like escape through the dark
field of the other.

in blackwater woods

by mary oliver

look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
every year
everything
i have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
to live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

blossom

by mary oliver
from new and selected poems

in april
     the ponds
          open
               like black blossoms,
the moon
     swims in every one;
          there's fire
               everywhere: frogs shouting
their desire,
     their satisfaction. what
          we know: that time
               chops at us all like an iron
hoe, that death
     is a state of paralysis. what
          we long for: joy
               before death, nights
in the swale -- everything else
     can wait but not
          this thrust
               from the root
of the body. what
     we know: we are more
          than blood -- we are more
               than our hunger and yet
we belong
     to the moon and when the ponds
          open, when the burning
               begins the most
thoughtful among us dreams
     of hurrying down
          into the black petals,
               into the fire,
into the night where time lies shattered,
into the body of another.

you are standing at the edge of the woods

You Are Standing at the Edge of the Woods
By Mary Oliver

You are standing at the edge of the woods
at twilight
when something begins
to sing, like a waterfall

pouring down
through the leaves. It is
the thrush.
And you are just

sinking down into your thoughts,
taking in
the sweetness of it—those chords,
those pursed twirls—when you hear

out of the same twilight
the wildest red outcry. It pitches itself
forward, it flails and scabs
all the surrounding space with such authority

you can’t tell
whether it is crying out on the
scarp of victory, with its hooked foot
dabbed into some creature that now
with snapped spine
lies on the earth—or whether
it is such a struck body itself, saying
goodbye.

The thrush
is silent then, or perhaps
has flown away.
The dark grows darker.

The moon,
in its shining white blouse,
rises.
And whatever that wild cry was

it will always remain a mystery
you have to go home now and live with,
sometimes with the ease of music, and sometimes in silence,

for the rest of your life.

messenger

Messenger
By Mary Oliver

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.

a gift

The Uses of Sorrow
by Mary Oliver

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.