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Secular or Eclectic
Contemporary

About Mary Oliver

Timeline (1935 - )

Mary Oliver, Mary Oliver poetry, Secular or Eclectic, Secular or Eclectic poetry,  poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry,  poetry

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Original Language
English

Can You Imagine?

Themes
  Birds
  Bower
  Night
  Sound
  Sun

 

Recommended Books

American Primitive, by Mary Oliver
Blue Iris: Poems and Essays, by Mary Oliver
Blue Pastures, by Mary Oliver
Dream Work, by Mary Oliver
God of Dirt: Mary Oliver and the Other Book of God, by Thomas W. Mann

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For example, what the trees do
not only in lightning storms
or the watery dark of a summer's night
or under the white nets of winter
but now, and now, and now - whenever
we're not looking. Surely you can't imagine
they don't dance, from the root up, wishing
to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting
a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly
more shade - surely you can't imagine they just
stand there loving every
minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings
of the years slowly and without a sound
thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,
and then only in its own mood, comes
to visit, surely you can't imagine
patience, and happiness, like that.

 

 

-- from Long Life: Essays and Other Writings, by Mary Oliver

Amazon.com

 

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.