Nov16

i woke

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Today would have been Georgia O’Keeffe’s 127th birthday. Happy Birthday Georgia! <3

Today would have been Georgia O’Keeffe’s 127th birthday. Happy Birthday Georgia!

I WOKE

I woke
and crept
like a cat

on silent feet
about my own house~
to look

at you
while you were sleeping,
your hair

sprayed on the pillow,
your eyes
closed,

your body
safe and solitary,
and my doors

shut for your safety
and your comfort.
I did this

thinking I was intruding,
yet wanting to see
the most beautiful thing

that has ever been in my house.

~ Mary Oliver

Nov15

deeper roots

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SUCH SILENCE

As deep as I ever went into the forest
I came upon an old stone bench, very, very old,
and around it a clearing, and beyond that
trees taller and older than I had ever seen.

Such silence!
It really wasn’t so far from a town, but it seemed
all the clocks in the world had stopped counting.
So it was hard to suppose the usual rules applied.

Sometimes there’s only a hint, a possibility.
What’s magical, sometimes, has deeper roots
than reason.
I hope everyone knows that.

I sat on the bench, waiting for something.
An angel, perhaps.
Or dancers with the legs of goats.

No, I didn’t see either. But only, I think, because
I didn’t stay long enough.

By Mary Oliver

Nov12

determine their homes

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ON NOT MOWING THE LAWN

Let the grass spring up tall, let its roots sing
and the seeds begin their scattering.
Let the weeds rejoin and be prolific throughout.
Let the noise of the mower be banished, hurrah!
Let the path become where I choose to walk, and not
otherwise established.
Let the goldfinches be furnished their humble dinner.
Let the sparrows determine their homes in security.
Let the honeysuckle reach as high as my window, that it
may look in.
Let the mice fill their barns and bins with a sufficiency.
Let anything be created, that wants to creep or leap
forward,
be able to do so.
Let the grasshopper have gliding space.
Let the noise of the mower be banished, yes, yes.
Let the katydid return and announce himself in the
long evenings.
Let the blades of grass surge back from the last
cutting.
Or, if you want to be poetic: the leaves of grass.

By Mary Oliver

Nov9

drifting like clouds

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DRIFTING

I was enjoying everything: the rain, the path
wherever it was taking me, the earth roots
beginning to stir.
I didn’t intend to start thinking about God,
it just happened.
How God, or the gods, are invisible,
quite understandable.
But holiness is visible, entirely.
It’s wonderful to walk along like that,
thought not the usual intention to reach an answer
but merely drifting.
Like clouds that only seem weightless
but of course are not.
Are really important.
I mean, terribly important.
Not decoration by any means.
By next week the violets will be blooming.
Anyway, this was my delicious walk in the rain.
What was it actually about?

Think about what it is that music is trying to say.
It was something like that.

~ by Mary Oliver

Nov8

they dance

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Art by Drea

Art by Drea

ANGELS

You might see an angel anytime
and anywhere. Of course you have
to open your eyes to a kind of
second level, but it’s not really
hard. The whole business of
what’s reality and what isn’t has
never been solved and probably
never will be. So I don’t care to
be too definite about anything.
I have a lot of edges Perhaps
and almost nothing can call
Certainty. For myself, but not
for other people. That’s a place
you just can’t get into, not
entirely anyway, other people’s
heads.

I’ll just leave you with this.
I don’t care how many angels can
dance on the head of a pin. It’s
enough to know that for some people
they exist, and that they dance.

~ by Mary Oliver

Nov2

the river

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image

Art by Drea

I’M NOT THE RIVER

I’m not the river
that powerful presence.
And I’m not the black oak tree
which is patience personified.
And I’m not redbird
who is a brief life heartily enjoyed.
Nor am I mud nor rock nor sand
which is holding everything together.
No, I am none of these meaningful things, not yet.

~ Mary Oliver

Nov1

like a poem?

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DO STONES FEEL?

Do stones feel?
Do they love their life?
Or does their patience drown out everything else?

When I walk on the beach I gather a few
white ones, dark ones, the multiple colors.
Don’t worry, I say, I’ll bring you back, and I do.

Is the tree as it rises delighted with its many
branches,
each one like a poem?

Are the clouds glad to unburden their bundles of rain?

Most of the world says no, no, it’s not possible.

I refuse to think to such a conclusion.
Too terrible it would be, to be wrong.

~ Mary Oliver

Oct23

otherworldly things

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THE HUMMINGBIRDS
BY MARY OLIVER

In this book
there are many hummingbirds~
the blue-throated, the bumblebee, the calliope,
the cinnamon, the lucifer, and of coarse
the ruby-throated.
Imagine!
Well, that’s all you can do.
For they’re swift as the wind

and they fly, not across the pages but,
like many shy and otherworldly things,
between them.
I know you’ll keep looking now that I’ve told you.
I’m hungry to see them too, but I can’t
hold them back even for a moment, they’re
busy, as all things are, with their own lives.
So all I can do is let you know
they’re here somewhere.
All I can do is tell you
by putting my own hunger on the page.

Oct17

the first kiss

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NO MATTER WHAT

No matter what the world claims,
its wisdom always growing, so it’s said,
some things don’t alter with time:
the first kiss is a good example,
and the flighty sweetness of rhyme.

No matter what the world preaches
spring unfolds in its appointed time,
the violets open and the roses,
snow in its hour builds its shining curves,
there’s the laughter of children at play,
and the wholesome sweetness of rhyme.

No matter what the world does,
some things don’t alter with time.
The first kiss, the first death.
The sorrowful sweetness of rhyme.

~ by Mary Oliver

Oct16

what i can do

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WHAT I CAN DO

The television has two instruments that control it.
I get confused.
The washer asks me, do you want regular or delicate?
Honestly, I just want clean.
Everything is like that.
I won’t even mention cell phones.

I can turn on the light of the lamp beside my chair
where a book is waiting, but that’s about it.

Oh yes, and I can strike a match and make a fire.

~ Mary Oliver