27 April 20 Guest Poet: Mary Oliver.

This week’s post welcomes the prize-winning poet, Mary Oliver. I’ve chosen her not only because her poetic form is superb, but also because she found, as I do, much of her material from nature on her long walks wherein she was graced with much inspiration.

Mountain Lion on East Hill Road, Austerlitz, NY

Once, years ago, I saw

the mountain cat. She stepped

from under a cloud

of birch trees and padded

along the edge of the field. When she saw

that I saw her, instantly

flames leaped

in her eyes, it was that

distasteful to her to be

seen. Her wide face

was a plate of gold,

her black lip

curled as though she had come

to a terrible place in the long movie, her shoulders

shook like water, her tail

swung at the grass

as she turned back under the trees,

just leaving me time to guess

that she was not a cat at all

but a lean and perfect mystery.

that perhaps I didn't really see,

but simply understood belong here

like all other perfections

that still, occasionally, emerge

out of the last waterfalls, forests,

the last unviolated mountains, hurrying

day after day, year after year

through the cage of the world.

Exploration: Where do you feel caged, or cage others.

Carrying The Snake To The Garden

In the cellar

was the smallest snake

I have ever seen.

It coiled itself

in a corner

and watched me

with eyes

like two little stars

set into coal,

and a tail

that quivered.

One step

of my foot

and it fled

like a running shoelace,

but a scoop of the wrist

and I had it

in my hand.

I was sorry

for the fear,

so I hurried

upstairs and out the kitchen door

to the warm grass

and the sunlight

and the garden.

It turned and turned

in my hand

but when I put it down

it didn't move.

I thought

it was going to flow

up my leg

and into my pocket.

I thought, for a moment,

as it lifted it's face,

it was going to sing.

And then it was gone.

Exploration: What song do you hear when you fear something or someone?

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.

This Too

There was the body of the fawn, in the leaves,

under the tall oaks.

There was the face, the succulent mouth,

the pink, extruded tongue.

There were the eyes.

There was its dark dress, half pulled off.

There were its little hooves.

There was the smell of change, which was

stink.

There was my dog's nose, reading the silence

like a book.

No one spoke, not the Creator, not the Preserver, not the Destroyer.

There was the sound of wind in the leaves,

in the tall oaks.

There was the terrible excitement

of the flies.

And for those who wish to know a bit more about the poet:

Mary Jane Oliver (September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019) was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

Mary Oliver's poetry is grounded in memories of Ohio and her adopted home of New England, setting most of her poetry in and around Provincetown after she moved there in the 1960s. Influenced by both Whitman and Thoreau, she is known for her clear and poignant observances of the natural world. In fact, according to the 1983 Chronology of American Literature, the "American Primitive," one of Oliver's collection of poems, "...presents a new kind of Romanticism that refuses to acknowledge boundaries between nature and the observing self."  Her creativity was stirred by nature, and Oliver, an avid walker, often pursued inspiration on foot. Her poems are filled with imagery from her daily walks near her home: shore birds, water snakes, the phases of the moon and humpback whales. In Long life she says "[I] go off to my woods, my ponds, my sun-filled harbor, no more than a blue comma on the map of the world but, to me, the emblem of everything." She commented in a rare interview "When things are going well, you know, the walk does not get rapid or get anywhere: I finally just stop and write. That's a successful walk!" She said that she once found herself walking in the woods with no pen and later hid pencils in the trees so she would never be stuck in that place again. She often carried a 3-by-5-inch hand-sewn notebook for recording impressions and phrases.

Note: Gratitude to LoraKim Joyner for her thorough exploration of Mary Oliver’s poems which Joyner has posted on her blogspot. She is a certified trainer in nonviolent communication and a veterinarian specializing in avian conservation.