Poet's Corner: three poems by Mary Oliver

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I am slowly making my way through Mary Oliver's Devotions. I'm about a third of the way through, and the book is due back to the library at the end of the month (yikes). Here are three that I marked along the way.



Coyote in the Dark, Coyotes Remembered by Mary Oliver

The darkest thing met me in the dark.
It was only a face and a brace of teeth
that held no words, though I felt a salty breath
sighing in my direction.
Once, in an autumn that is long gone,
I was down on my knees in the cranberry bog
and heard, in that lonely place,
two voices coming down the hill, and I was thrilled
to be granted this secret,
that the coyotes, walking together can talk together,
for I thought, what else could it be?
And even though what emerged
were two young women, two-legged for sure
and not at all aware of me,
their nimble, young women tongues
telling and answering, and though I knew
I have believed something probably not true,
yet it was wonderful to have believed it.
And it has stayed with me
as a present once given is forever given.
Easy and happy they sounded,
those two maidens of the wilderness
from which we have-
who knows to what furious, pitiful extent-
banished ourselves.

Of the Empire by Mary Oliver

We will be known as a culture that feared death
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many. We will be known as a culture that taught
and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke
little if at all about the quality of life for
people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All
the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a
commodity. And they will say that this structure
was held together politically, which it was, and
they will say also that our politics was no more
than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of
the heart, and that the heart, in those days,
was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

Hum by Mary Oliver

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.

Comments

[debriswoman]

Of The Empire is particularly striking. Thank you for posting:-)

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I'm glad you liked it!

[lunabee34]

I adore Mary Oliver. That middle poem especially is very powerful.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I'm glad you like that one.