Mary Oliver

[micki]

A few poems from A Thousand Mornings:

Poem of the one world
This morning
The beautiful white heron
Was floating along above the water
And then into the sky of this
The one world
We all belong to
Where everything's
sooner or later
is part of everything else
Which thought made me feel
For a little while
quite beautiful myself.


If I were
There are lots of ways to dance
and to spin, sometimes it just starts my
feet first then my entire body, I am
spinning no one can see it but it is
happening. I am so glad to be alive,
I am so glad to be loving and loved.
Even if I were close to the finish,
even if I were at my final breath, I
would be here to take a stand, bereft
of such astonishments, but for them.

If I were a Sufi for sure I would be one of the spinning kind.



I happened to be standing


I don't know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half asleep in the sun?
Do the opossum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
Along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self attendance. A condition I can't really
Call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe it's their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm.
I don't know why. And yet, why not.
I wouldn't persuade you from whatever you believe
Or whatever you don't. That's your business.
but I thought, of the wren singing, what could this be if it isn't a prayer
So I just listened, my pen in the air.