Black Swallowtail
By Mary Oliver

The caterpillar,
interesting but not exactly lovely,
humped along among the parley leaves
eating, always eating. Then
one night it was gone and in its place
a small green confinement hung by two silk threads
on a parsley stem. I think it took nothing with it
except faith, and patience. And then one morning

it expressed itself into the most beautiful being.

Of Love
By Mary Oliver

I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not. Sometimes
it was all but ephemeral, maybe only
an afternoon, but not less real for that.
They stay in my mind, these beautiful people,
or anyway beautiful people to me, of which
there are so many. You, and you, and you,
whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe
missed. Love, love, love, it was the
core of my life, from which, of course, comes
the word for the heart. And, oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women
and some—now carry my revelation with you—
were trees. Or places. Or music flying above
the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun
which was the first, and the best, the most
loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into
my eyes, every morning. So I imagine
such love of the world—its fervency, its shining, its
innocence and hunger to give of itself—I imagine
this is how it began.

Don’t Hesitate

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

~ Mary Oliver

Maker of All Things, Even Healings
by Mary Oliver

All night
under the pines
the fox
moves through the darkness
with a mouthful of teeth
and a reputation for death
which it deserves.
In the spicy
villages of the mice
he is famous,
his nose
in the grass
is like an earthquake,
his feet
on the path
is a message so absolute
that the mouse, hearing it,
makes himself
as small as he can
as he sits silent
or, trembling, goes on
hunting among the grasses
for the ripe seeds.
Maker of All Things,
including appetite,
including stealth,
including the fear that makes
all of us, sometime or other,
flee for the sake
of our small and precious lives,
let me abide in your shadow-
let me hold on
to the edge of your robe
as you determine
what you must let be lost
and what will be saved.

“Our love is like a well in the wilderness where time watches over the wandering lightning. Our sleep is a secret tunnel that leads to the scent of apples carried on the wind. When I hold you, I hold everything that is—swans, volcanoes, river rocks, maple trees drinking the fragrance of the moon, bread that the fire adores. In your life I see everything that lives.”
~ Pablo Neruda

Anhelo Su Boca, Su Voz, Su Pelo
By Pablo Neruda

Anhelo su boca, su voz, su pelo.
Silencioso y muerto de hambre, rondo a traves de las calles.
El pan no me alimenta, amanecer me interrumpe,
yo busca todo el dia para la medida líquida de sus pasos.

Tengo hambre de su risa lisa, sus manos el color de una cosecha salvaje, hambre para las piedras palidas de sus unas,
yo deseo comer su piel como una almendra entera.

Deseo comer el rayo de sol que senala por medio de luces en su cuerpo encantador, la nariz soberana de su cara arrogante,
yo deseo comer la cortina efímera de sus latigazos,

y establezco el paso alrededor de hambriento, oliendo el crepúsculo,
caza para usted, para su corazón caliente,
como un puma en los barrens de Quitratue.

I Crave Your Mouth
by Pablo Neruda

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent, starving I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disquiets me,
I search the liquid sound of your steps all day.
I hunger for your sleek laugh,
For your hands the color of the wild grain,
I hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your loveliness,
The nose, sovereign of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

And I walk hungry, smelling the twilight
Looking for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barren wilderness.

 

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

 

 

Another Everyday Poem
By Mary Oliver

 

Every day

I consider

the lilies-

how they are dressed-

 

and the ravens-

how they are fed-

and how each of these

is a miracle

 

of Lord-love

and of sorrow-

for the lilies

in their bright dresses

 

cannot last

but wrinkle fast

and fall,

and the little ravens

 

in their windy nest

rise up

in such pleasure

at the sight

 

of fresh meat

that makes their lives sweet-

and what a puzzle it is

that such brevity-

 

the lavish clothes,

the ruddy food-

makes the world

so full, so good.

Summer Story
By Mary Oliver

When the hummingbird
sinks its face
into the trumpet vine,
into the funnels

of the blossoms,
and the tongue
leaps out
and throbs,

I am scorched
to realize once again
how many small, available things
are in the world

that aren’t
pieces of gold
or power–
that nobody owns

or could buy even
for a hillside of money–
that just
float about the world,

or drift over the fields,
or into the gardens,
and into the tents of the vines,
and now here I am

spending my time,
as the saying goes,
watching until the watching turns into feeling,
so that I feel I am myself

a small bird
with a terrible hunger,
with a thin beak probing and dipping
and a heart that races so fast

it is only a heartbeat ahead of breaking–
and I am the hunger and the assuagement,
and also I am the leaves and the blossoms,
and, like them, I am full of delight and shaking.

A Certain Sharpness in the Morning Air
By Mary Oliver

In the morning
it shuffles, unhurried,
across the wet fields
in its black slippers,
in its coal-colored coat
with the white stripe like a river
running down its spine–
a glossy animal with a quick temper
and two bulbs of such diatribe under its tail
that when I see it I pray
not to be noticed–
not to be struck
by the flat boards of its anger–
for the whole haul of its smell
is unendurable–
like tragedy
that can’t be borne,
like death
that has to be buried, or burned–
but a little of it is another story–
for it’s true, isn’t it,
in our world,
that the petals pooled with nectar, and the polished thorns
are a single thing–
that even the purest light, lacking the robe of darkness,
would be without expression–
that love itself, without it’s pain, would be
no more than a shruggable comfort.
Lately, I have noticed, when the skunk’s temper has tilted
in the distance,
and the acids are floating everywhere,
and I am touched, it is all, even in my nostrils and my throat
as the brushing of thorns;
and I stand there
thinking of the old, wild life of the fields, when, as I remember it,
I was shaggy, and beautiful,
like the rose.

Artist
by Drea

Use creativity,
images represent,
meaning inferred.

Trust spirit,
fill holes of inadequacy,
focus attention.

Passion to brightness,
symbols unfold,
receive mystical teachings.