“To tell you the truth, I believe everything – tigers, trees, stones – are sentient in one way or another. You’d never catch me idly kicking a stone, for example.”
Mary Oliver
I feel the same way.
Happy Sunday.
Life in our little cottage in the country
at by Claudia
“To tell you the truth, I believe everything – tigers, trees, stones – are sentient in one way or another. You’d never catch me idly kicking a stone, for example.”
Mary Oliver
I feel the same way.
Happy Sunday.
at by Claudia
It’s going to reach the fifties today. I can hear some birds singing.
Time to share this poem by the late, great Mary Oliver:
Such Singing in the Wild Branches
It was spring
and I finally heard him
among the first leaves—
then I saw him clutching the limb
in an island of shade
with his red-brown feathers
all trim and neat for the new year.
First, I stood still
and thought of nothing.
Then I began to listen.
Then I was filled with gladness
and that’s when it happened,
when I seemed to float,
to be, myself, a wing or a tree–
and I began to understand
what the bird was saying.
and the sands in the glass
stopped
for a pure white moment
while gravity sprinkled upward.
like rain, rising,
and in fact
it became difficult to tell just what it was that was singing
and it was the thrush for sure, but it seemed
not a single thrush, but himself, and all his brothers,
and also the trees around them,
as well as the gliding, long-tailed clouds
in the perfect blue sky–––all of them
were singing.
And, of course, so it seemed,
so was I.
Such soft and solemn and perfect music doesn’t last
For more than a few moments.
It’s one of those magical places wise people
like to talk about.
One of the things they say about it, that is true,
is that, once you’ve been there,
you’re there forever.
Listen, everyone has a chance.
Is it spring, is it morning?
Are there trees near you,
and does your own soul need comforting?
Quick, then––open the door and fly on your heavy feet; the song
may already be drifting away.
Mary Oliver
Spring is coming. There is still a lot of snow on the ground here. But we can sense it.
Happy Monday.
at by Claudia
My favorite poet passed away yesterday. And, from what I’ve seen on social media, Mary Oliver was the favorite poet of many, many people.
I don’t read a lot of poetry – except Shakespeare – but I do read Mary Oliver. She was accessible. She wrote beautifully, lyrically, but in a plain spoken way that resonated with her readers. She wrote of nature. She wrote of grief. She wrote of living a life of integrity, taking chances, being in the moment, looking around you. Seeing. Being. Becoming.
I first discovered her poems in the late eighties. My mentor at Boston University, who was a voice teacher, used them as teaching tools in his voice class. Each student was assigned one of her poems. Eventually, they had to interpret it. Speak it. Make the images come alive through their voices.
I quickly bought a volume of her poetry. And then another. And another.
Some of my Mary Oliver books – the white one on the left is a collection of her poems.
When I moved to San Diego and started teaching voice as well as speech and dialects, I did the same thing. I assigned Mary Oliver’s poems, especially her poems that told a story, to my students. For most of them, this assignment was their introduction to Mary Oliver.
I’ve had students write me in the years since thanking me for that introduction.
So when I heard that she had passed away yesterday, for an moment, I felt as if the breath had left my body.
Such a profound loss.
But what a life she led. I heard Krista Tippett interview her a few years back. She was all I thought she would be and more. More than any other writer, she seemed to tap into my soul. She seemed to understand how I felt about nature and animals and people and life. And she taught me to look even more closely at the world around me.
She was preceded in death by her longtime partner, photographer Molly Malone.
She leaves behind her words, her images, her wisdom. I’m so grateful for that.
But oh, how we’ll miss her.
Rest in Peace.
Happy Friday.
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