Hum

What is this dark hum among the roses?

The bees have gone simple, sipping,
that's all. What did you expect? Sophistication?
They're small creatures and they are
filling their bodies with sweetness, how could they not
moan in happiness? The little
worker bee lives, I have read, about three weeks.
Is that long? Long enough, I suppose, to understand
that life is a blessing. I have found them — haven't you? —
stopped in the very cups of the flowers, their wings
a little tattered — so much flying about, to the hive,
then out into the world, then back, and perhaps dancing,
should the task be to be a scout-sweet, dancing bee.
I think there isn't anything in this world I don't
admire. If there is, I don't know what it is. I
haven't met it yet. Nor expect to. The bee is small,
and since I wear glasses, so I can see the traffic and
read books, I have to
take them off and bend close to study and
understand what is happening. It's not hard, it's in fact
as instructive as anything I have ever studied. Plus, too,
it's love almost too fierce to endure, the bee
nuzzling like that into the blouse
of the rose. And the fragrance, and the honey, and of course
the sun, the purely pure sun, shining, all the while, over
all of us.

-- Mary Oliver (1935-2019), Pulitzer Prize winning poet and recipient of the National Book Award

Image: Bees in a Lavender Farm, Te Awamutu, New Zealand, 2023

How It Is With Us, and How It Is With Them

We become religious,
then we turn from it,
then we are in need and maybe we turn back.
We turn to making money,
then we turn to the moral life,
then we think about money again.
We meet wonderful people, but lose them
    in our busyness.
We’re, as the saying goes, all over the place.
Steadfastness, it seems,
is more about dogs than about us.
One of the reasons we love them so much.


--Mary Oliver (1935-2019), best-selling American poet, author, and teacher,  from Dog Songs, 2013

Musical Notation: 1

The physicality of the religious poets should not
be taken idly. He or she, who loves God, will
look most deeply into His works. Clouds are not
only vapor, but shape, mobility, silky sacks of
nourishing rain. The pear orchard is not
only profit, but a paradise of light. The luna moth,
who lives but a few days, sometimes only a few
hours, has a pale green wing whose rim is like a
musical notation. Have you noticed? 

We had a dog once that adored flowers; no mat-
ter how briskly she went through the fields, she
must stop and consider the lilies, tiger lilies, and
other blossoming things along her way. Another
dog of our household loved sunsets and would
run off in the evenings to the most western part
of the shore and sit down on his haunches for
the whole show, that pink and peach colored
swollenness. Then home he would come trot-
ting in the alpenglow, that happy dog.

--Mary Oliver (1935- 2019), prolific and popular American poet and lover of nature, from Thirst.

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 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.


--Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet, teacher, writer and treasure, from Thirst: Poems, 2006

Image: Anemones in the Augustinian nunnery ruins, Iona, 2018.

Gerhsemane

The grass never sleeps.

Or the rose.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.
The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it even sleeps.
Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe
the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move,
maybe
the lake far away, where once he walked as on a
blue pavement,
lay still and waited, wild awake.
Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be a part of the story.


-- Mary Oliver (1935-2019), Pulitzer Prize winning poet and recipient of the National Book Award

Scriptural References: Matthew 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:40-46; John 18:1

Making the House ready for the Lord

Dear Lord, I have swept and I have washed but
still nothing is as shining as it should be
for you. Under the sink, for example, is an
uproar of mice — it is the season of their
many children. What shall I do? And under the eaves
and through the walls the squirrels
have gnawed their ragged entrances — but it is the season
when they need shelter, so what shall I do? And
the raccoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboard
while the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow;
what shall I do? Beautiful is the new snow falling
in the yard and the fox who is staring boldly
up the path, to the door. And still I believe you will
come, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox,
the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea-goose, know
that really I am speaking to you whenever I say,
as I do all morning and afternoon: Come in, Come in.

--Mary Oliver (1934-2019), American poet

The Little Dog's Rhapsody in the Night

He puts his cheek against mine

and makes small, expressive sounds.
And when I’m awake, or awake enough

he turns upside down, his four paws
     in the air
and his eyes dark and fervent.

“Tell me you love me,” he says.

“Tell me again.”

Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over
he gets to ask.
I get to tell.

--Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet,  from Dog Songs

Image: Brodie joins our family, Jan. 11, 2021

Forgive Me

Angels are wonderful but they are so, well, aloof.

It’s what I sense in the mud and the roots of the
trees, or the well, or the barn, or the rock with
its citron map of lichen that halts my feet and
makes my eyes flare, feeling the presence of some
spirit, some small god, who abides there.

If I were a perfect person, I would be bowing
continuously.
I’m not, though I pause wherever I feel this
holiness, which is why I’m so often late coming
back from wherever I went.

Forgive me.


--Mary Oliver, from Blue Horses, 2014

Song for Autumn

Don’t you imagine the leaves dream now
   how comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
   nothingness of the air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
   the trees, especially those with
mossy hollows, are beginning to look for

the fires that will come—six, a dozen—to sleep
   inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
   the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
   stiffens and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
   its long blue shadows. The wind wags
its many tails. And in the evening
   the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

--Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet

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
slighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that 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 (1935- 2019), from Dream Work, 1986

White-Eyes

In winter 
   all the singing 
      is in the tops of the trees 
         where the wind-bird

with its white eyes
   shoves and pushes 
      among the branches.
         Like any of us 

he wants to go to sleep,
   but he's restless—
      he has an idea,
         and slowly it unfolds 

from under his beating wings
   as long as he stays awake.
      But his big, round music, after all,
         is too breathy to last.

So, it's over.
   In the pine-crown
      he makes his nest,
         he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird,
   I only imagine his glittering beak
      tucked in a white wing
         while the clouds—

which he has summoned
   from the north— 
     which he has taught
         to be mild, and silent— 

thicken, and begin to fall
   into the world below
      like stars, or the feathers
         of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,
   that is asleep now, and silent— 
      that has turned itself
         into snow.

--Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet, teacher, and writer

The Poet Thinks About the Donkey

On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited,
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.

How horses, turned into the meadow,
     leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
     clatter away, splashed with sunlight!

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen,
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

--Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet, teacher, and author, from Thirst: Poems, 2006.



Photo: detail from a window at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Ferguson, MO, by Emil Frei and Sons.

Gethsemane

The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a sacred eye that shuts until morning.

Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.

The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,'
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.

Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe
the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn't move,
     maybe
the lake far away, where once he walked as on a
blue pavement, lay still and waited, wide awake.

Oh, the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be a part of the story.

--Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet, teacher, and writer, from Thirst:Poems, 2006.

Photo: Jesus being scourged, Passion side of La Sagrada Familia, 2016.

Coming to God: First Days

Lord, what shall I do that I
Can’t quiet myself?
Here is the bread, and
Here is the cup, and
I can’t quiet myself.  

To enter the language of transformation!
To learn the importance of stillness,
     With one’s hands folded!

When will my eyes of rejoicing turn peaceful?
When will my joyful feet grow still?
When will my heart stop its prancing
     As over the summer grass?

Lord, I would run for you, loving the miles for your sake.
I would climb the highest tree
To be that much closer.

Lord, I will learn also to kneel down
Into the world of the invisible,
     The inscrutable and the everlasting.
Then I will move no more than the leaves of a tree
     On a day of no wind,
Bathed in light,
Like the wanderer who has come home at last
And kneels in peace, done with all unnecessary things;
Every motion; even words.

-- Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet, from Thirst: Poems, 2006

White Eyes

In winter
     all the singing is in
          the tops of the trees
               where the wind-bird

with its white eyes
     shoves and pushes
          among the branches.
               Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,
     but he's restless—
          he has an idea,
               and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings
     as long as he stays awake.
          But his big, round music, after all
               is too breathy to last.

So, it's over.
     In the pine-crown
          he makes his nest,
               he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird,
     I only imagine his glittering beak
          tucked in a white wing
               while the clouds—

which he has summoned
     from the north—
          which he has taught
               to be mild, and silent—

thicken, and begin to fall
     into the world below
          like stars, or the feathers
               of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,
     that is asleep now, and silent—
          that has turned itself 
               into snow.

--Mary Oliver (1935-2019), from Poetry magazine.

Thirst

Another morning and I wake with a thirst
for the goodness I do not have. I walk
out to the pond and all the way God has
given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,
I was never a quick scholar but sulked
and hunched over my books past the
hour and the bell; grant me, in your
mercy, a little more time. Love for the
earth and love for you are having such a
long conversation in my heart. Who
knows what will finally happen or
where I will be sent, yet already I have
given a great many things away, expect
ing to be told to pack nothing, except the
prayers which, with this thirst, I am
slowly learning.

-- Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet, teacher, and essayist, from Thirst: Poems, 2006.

What I Said At Her Service

When we pray to love God perfectly,
surely we do not mean only.

(Lord, see how well I have done.)

-- Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet, teacher, and writer, from Thirst: Poems, 2006

Six Recognitions of the Lord

1.
I know a lot of fancy words.
I tear them from my heart and my tongue.
Then I pray.

2.
Lord God, mercy is in your hands, pour
me a little. And tenderness too. My
need is great. Beauty walks so freely
and with such gentleness. Impatience puts
a halter on my face and I run away over
the green fields wanting your voice, your
tenderness, but having to do with only
the sweet grasses of the fields against
my body. When I first found you I was
filled with light, now the darkness grows
and it is filled with crooked things, bitter
and weak, each one bearing my name.

3.
I lounge on the grass, that's all. So
simple. Then I lie back until I am
inside the cloud that is just above me
but very high, and shaped like a fish.
Or, perhaps not. Then I enter the place
of not-thinking, not-remembering, not-
wanting. When the blue jay cries out his
riddle, in his carping voice, I return.
But I go back, the threshold is always
near. Over and back, over and back. Then
I rise. Maybe I rub my face as though I
have been asleep. But I have not been
asleep. I have been, as I say, inside
the cloud, or, perhaps, the lily floating
on the water. Then I go back to town,
to my own house, my own life, which has
now become brighter and simpler, some-
where I have never been before.

4.
Of course I have always known you
are present in the clouds, and the
black oak I especially adore, and the
wings of birds. But you are present
too in the body, listening to the body,
teaching it to live, instead of all
that touching, with disembodied joy.
We do not do this easily. We have
lived so long in the heavens of touch,
and we maintain our mutability, our
physicality, even as we begin to
apprehend the other world. Slowly we
make our appreciative response.
Slowly appreciation swells to
astonishment. And we enter the dialogue
of our lives that is beyond all under-
standing or conclusion. It is mystery, 
It is love of God. It is obedience.

5.
Oh, feed me this day, Holy Spirit, with
the fragrance of the fields and the
freshness of the oceans which you have
made, and help me to hear and to hold
in all dearness those exacting and wonderful
words of our Lord Jesus Christ, saying:
Follow me.

6.
Every summer the lilies rise
     and open their white hands until they almost
cover the black waters of the pond. And I give
     thanks but it does not seem like adequate thanks,
it doesn't seem
     festive enough or constant enough, nor does the
name of the Lord of the words of thanksgiving come
     into it often enough. Everywhere I go I am
treated like royalty, which I am not. I thirst and
     am given water. My eyes thirst and I am given
the white lilies on the black water. My heart
      sings but the apparatus of singing doesn't convey
half what it feels and means. In spring there's hope,
     in fall the exquisite, necessary diminishing, in
winter I am as sleepy as any beast in its
     leafy cave, but in the summer there is
everywhere the luminous sprawl of gifts,
     the hospitality of the Lord and my
inadequate answers as I row my beautiful, temporary body
     through this water-lily world.

--Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet, teacher, and author, from Thirst: Poems, 2006

The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist

Something has happened
to the bread
and the wine.

They have been blessed.
What now?

The body leans forward

to receive the gift
from the priest's hand,
then the chalice.

They are something else now
from what they were
before this began.

I want
to see Jesus,
maybe in the clouds

or on the shore,
just walking,
beautiful man

and clearly
someone else
besides.

On the hard days
I ask myself
if I ever will.

Also there are times
my body whispers to me
that I have.

-- Mary Oliver (1935-2019), American poet and author, from Thirst: Poems, 2006

In Blackwater Woods

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.

--Mary Oliver (1935-2019) who passed away yesterday, from American Primitive, 1983. Mary Chapin Carpenter quoted from this as the first Mary Oliver poem she ever read.

Cited by Parker J. Palmer in his On Being Blog.

Image: The Canopy at Muir Woods, 2012.