Snowy Egret
A late summer night and the snowy egret
has come again to the shallows in front of my house
as he has for forty years.
Don't think he is a casual part of my life,
that white stroke in the dark.
Violets
Down by the rumbling creek and the tall trees --
where I went truant from school three days a week
and therefore broke the record --
there were violets as easy in thier lives
as anything you have ever seen
or leaned down to intake the sweet breath of.
Later, when the necessary houses were built
they were gone, and would give significance
to thier absence.
Oh, violets, you did signify, and what shall take
your place?
The Poet Always Carries a Notebook
What is he scribbling on the page?
Is there snow in it, or fire?
Is it the beginning of a poem?
Is it a love note?
More Honey Locust
Any day now
the branches
of the honey locust
will be filled
with white fountains;
in my hands
I will see
the holy seeds
and a sweetness
will rise up
from these petal-bundles
so heavy
I must close my eyes
to take it in,
to bear
such generosity.
I will hope that you too
know the honey locust,
the fragrance
of those fountains;
and I hope that you too will pause
to admire the slender trunk,
the leaves, the holy seeds,
the ground they grow from
year after year
with striving and patience;
and I hope that you too
will say a word of thanks
for such creation
out of the wholesome earth,
which would be, and dearly is needed,
a prayer for all of us.
Water
What is the vitality and necessity
of clean water?
Ask the man who is ill, who is lifting
his lips to the cup.
Ask the forest.
A Lesson from James Wright
If James Wright
could put in his book of poems
a blank page
dedicated to "the Horse David
Who Ate One of My Poems," I am ready
to follow him along
the sweet path he cut
through the dryness
and suggest that you sit now
very quietly
in some lovely wild place, and listen
to the silence.
And I say that this,too,
is a poem.
Meeting Wolf
There are no words
inside his mouth,
inside his golden eyes.
So we stand silent,
both of us tense
under the speechless but faithful trees.
And this is what I think:
I have given him
intrusion.
He has given me
a glimpse into a better but now broken world.
Not his doing, but ours.
Just Rain
The clouds
did not say
soon, but who can tell
for sure, it wasn't
the first time I had been
fooled; the sky-doors
opened and
the rain began
to fall upon all of us: the
grass, the leaves,
my face, my shoulders
and the flowered body
of the pond where
it made its soft
unnotational
music on the pond's
springy surface, and then
the birds joined in and I too
felt called toward such
throat praise. Well,
the whole afternoon went on
that way until I thought
I could feel
the almost born things
in the earth rejoicing. As for myself,
I just kept walking, thinking:
once more I am grateful
to be present.
......................................................................................................
Poems by Mary Oliver from her book: "Evidence", Beacon Press, Boston, 2009
A late summer night and the snowy egret
has come again to the shallows in front of my house
as he has for forty years.
Don't think he is a casual part of my life,
that white stroke in the dark.
Violets
Down by the rumbling creek and the tall trees --
where I went truant from school three days a week
and therefore broke the record --
there were violets as easy in thier lives
as anything you have ever seen
or leaned down to intake the sweet breath of.
Later, when the necessary houses were built
they were gone, and would give significance
to thier absence.
Oh, violets, you did signify, and what shall take
your place?
The Poet Always Carries a Notebook
What is he scribbling on the page?
Is there snow in it, or fire?
Is it the beginning of a poem?
Is it a love note?
More Honey Locust
Any day now
the branches
of the honey locust
will be filled
with white fountains;
in my hands
I will see
the holy seeds
and a sweetness
will rise up
from these petal-bundles
so heavy
I must close my eyes
to take it in,
to bear
such generosity.
I will hope that you too
know the honey locust,
the fragrance
of those fountains;
and I hope that you too will pause
to admire the slender trunk,
the leaves, the holy seeds,
the ground they grow from
year after year
with striving and patience;
and I hope that you too
will say a word of thanks
for such creation
out of the wholesome earth,
which would be, and dearly is needed,
a prayer for all of us.
Water
What is the vitality and necessity
of clean water?
Ask the man who is ill, who is lifting
his lips to the cup.
Ask the forest.
A Lesson from James Wright
If James Wright
could put in his book of poems
a blank page
dedicated to "the Horse David
Who Ate One of My Poems," I am ready
to follow him along
the sweet path he cut
through the dryness
and suggest that you sit now
very quietly
in some lovely wild place, and listen
to the silence.
And I say that this,too,
is a poem.
Meeting Wolf
There are no words
inside his mouth,
inside his golden eyes.
So we stand silent,
both of us tense
under the speechless but faithful trees.
And this is what I think:
I have given him
intrusion.
He has given me
a glimpse into a better but now broken world.
Not his doing, but ours.
Just Rain
The clouds
did not say
soon, but who can tell
for sure, it wasn't
the first time I had been
fooled; the sky-doors
opened and
the rain began
to fall upon all of us: the
grass, the leaves,
my face, my shoulders
and the flowered body
of the pond where
it made its soft
unnotational
music on the pond's
springy surface, and then
the birds joined in and I too
felt called toward such
throat praise. Well,
the whole afternoon went on
that way until I thought
I could feel
the almost born things
in the earth rejoicing. As for myself,
I just kept walking, thinking:
once more I am grateful
to be present.
......................................................................................................
Poems by Mary Oliver from her book: "Evidence", Beacon Press, Boston, 2009
