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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

This World

Themes
  Birds
  Bower
  Dawn
  Fire
  Honey

 

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

More >>

I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open and becomes a star.
The ants bore into the peony bud and there is a dark
pinprick well of sweetness.
As for the stones on the beach, forget it.
Each one could be set in gold.
So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds
were singing.
And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music
out of their leaves.
And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and
beautiful silence
as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we're not too
hurried to hear it.
As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs
even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,
and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,
so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being
locked up in gold.

 

 

-- from Why I Wake Early, 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.