Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
The Fist by Mary Oliver
There are days when the sun goes down like a fist, though of course if you see anything in the heavens in this way you had better get your eyes checked or, better, still, your diminished spirit. The heavens have no fist, or wouldn’t they have been shaking it for a thousand years now, and […]
Moments by Mary Oliver
There are moments that cry out to be fulfilled. Like, telling someone you love them. Or giving your money away, all of it. Your heart is beating, isn’t it? You’re not in chains, are you? There is nothing more pathetic than caution when headlong might save a life, even, possibly, your own.
Five A.M. in the Pinewoods by Mary Oliver
I’d seen their hoofprints in the deep needles and knew they ended the long night under the pines, walking like two mute and beautiful women toward the deeper woods, so I got up in the dark and went there. They came slowly down the hill and looked at me sitting under the blue trees, shyly […]
Thirst by Mary Oliver
Another morning and I wake with 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 […]
Lead by Mary Oliver
Here is a story to break your heart. Are you willing? This winter the loons came to our harbor and died, one by one, of nothing we could see. A friend told me of one on the shore that lifted its head and opened the elegant beak and cried out in the long, sweet savoring […]
A Bride Married to Amazement by Mary Oliver
When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox; when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to step through the door full of curiosity, […]
To live in this world by Mary Oliver
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.
Morning Poem by Mary Oliver
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 […]
Going to Walden by Mary Oliver
It isn’t very far as highways lie. I might be back by nightfall, having seen The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water Friends argue that I might be wiser for it. They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper: How dull we grow from hurrying here and there! Many have gone, and […]