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And To Tell The Truth I Don't Want To Let Go Of The Wrists Of Idleness, I Don't Want To Sell My Life For Money, I Don't Even Want To Come In Out Of The Rain.

-Mary Oliver

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And To Tell The

Mary Oliver

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And To Tell The Truth I Don't Want To Let Go Of The Wrists Of Idleness, I Don't Want To Sell My Life For Money, I Don't Even Want To Come In Out Of The Rain.

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I Worked Privately, And Sometimes I Feel That Might Be Better For Poets Than The Kind Of Social Workshop Gathering. My School Was The Great Poets: I Read, And I Read, And I Read.

I Saw That Worrying Had Come To Nothing And Gave It Up. And Took My Old Body And Went Out Into The Morning, And Sang.

If You Suddenly And Unexpectedly Feel Joy, Don’t Hesitate. Give In To It.

But How Did You Come Burning Down Like A Wild Needle, Knowing Just Where My Heart Was?

I Stood Willingly And Gladly In The Characters Of Everything - Other People, Trees, Clouds. And This Is What I Learned, That The World's Otherness Is Antidote To Confusion - That Standing Within This Otherness - The Beauty And The Mystery Of The World, Out In The Fields Or Deep Inside Books - Can Re-dignify The Worst-stung Heart.

You Want To Cry Aloud For Your Mistakes. But To Tell The Truth The World Doesn't Need Any More Of That Sound.

It Is A Serious Thing // Just To Be Alive / On This Fresh Morning / In This Broken World.

I Decided Very Early That I Wanted To Write. But I Didn't Think Of It As A Career. I Didn't Even Think Of It As A Profession... It Was The Most Exciting Thing, The Most Powerful Thing, The Most Wonderful Thing To Do With My Life.

Every Spring I Hear The Thrush Singing In The Glowing Woods He Is Only Passing Through. His Voice Is Deep, Then He Lifts It Until It Seems To Fall From The Sky. I Am Thrilled. I Am Grateful. Then, By The End Of Morning, He's Gone, Nothing But Silence Out Of The Tree Where He Rested For A Night. And This I Find Acceptable. Not Enough Is A Poor Life. But Too Much Is, Well, Too Much. Imagine Verdi Or Mahler Every Day, All Day. It Would Exhaust Anyone.

He Is Exactly The Poem I Wanted To Write.

Tell Me, What Else Should I Have Done? Doesn't Everything Die At Last, And Too Soon? Tell Me, What Is It You Plan To Do With Your One Wild And Precious Life?

How Precious Life Is

A Poet's Interest In Craft Never Fades, Of Course.

When It's Over, I Want To Say: All My Life I Was A Bride Married To Amazement. I Was The Bridegroom, Taking The World Into My Arms. When It Is Over, I Don't Want To Wonder If I Have Made Of My Life Something Particular, And Real. I Don't Want To Find Myself Sighing And Frightened, Or Full Of Argument. I Don't Want To End Up Simply Having Visited This World.

People Want Poetry. They Need Poetry. They Get It. They Don't Want Fancy Work.

The Man Who Has Many Answers Is Often Found In The Theaters Of Information Where He Offers, Graciously, His Deep Findings. While The Man Who Has Only Questions, To Comfort Himself, Makes Music.

If You Suddenly And Unexpectedly Feel Joy, Don't Hesitate. Give In To It. There Are Plenty Of Lives And Whole Towns Destroyed Or About To Be. We Are Not Wise, And Not Very Often Kind. And Much Can Never Be Redeemed. Still Life Has Some Possibility Left. Perhaps This Is Its Way Of Fighting Back, That Sometimes Something Happened Better Than All The Riches Or Power In The World. It Could Be Anything, But Very Likely You Notice It In The Instant When Love Begins. Anyway, That's Often The Case. Anyway, Whatever It Is, Don't Be Afraid Of Its Plenty. Joy Is Not Made To Be A Crumb.

To Pay Attention, This Is Our Endless And Proper Work.

All Night My Heart Makes Its Way However It Can Over The Rough Ground Of Uncertainties, But Only Until Night Meets And Then Is Overwhelmed By Morning, The Light Deepening, The Wind Easing And Just Waiting, As I Too Wait (and When Have I Ever Been Disappointed?) For Redbird To Sing

I Had A Dog Who Loved Flowers. Briskly She Went Through The Fields, Yet Paused For The Honeysuckle Or The Rose, Her Dark Head And Her Wet Nose Touching The Face Of Every One With Its Petals Of Silk With Its Fragrance Rising Into The Air Where The Bees, Their Bodies Heavy With Pollen Hovered - And Easily She Adored Every Blossom Not In The Serious Careful Way That We Choose This Blossom Or That Blossom The Way We Praise Or Don't Praise - The Way We Love Or Don't Love - But The Way We Long To Be - That Happy In The Heaven Of Earth - That Wild, That Loving.

To Live In This World, You Must Be Able To Do Three Things: To Love What Is Mortal; To Hold It Against Your Bones Knowing Your Own Life Depends On It; And, When The Time Comes To Let It Go, To Let It Go.

Do You Love This World? Do You Cherish Your Humble And Silky Life? Do You Adore The Green Grass, With Its Terror Beneath? Do You Also Hurry, Half-dressed And Barefoot, Into The Garden, And Softly, And Exclaiming Of Their Dearness, Fill Your Arms With The White And Pink Flowers, With Their Honeyed Heaviness, Their Lush Trembling, Their Eagerness To Be Wild And Perfect For A Moment, Before They Are Nothing, Forever?

What Can We Do But Keep On Breathing In And Out, Modest And Willing, And In Our Places?

Though I Play At The Edges Of Knowing, Truly I Know Our Part Is Not Knowing, But Looking, And Touching, And Loving

There Are Things You Can’t Reach. But You Can Reach Out To Them, And All Day Long. The Wind, The Bird Flying Away. The Idea Of God. And It Can Keep You Busy As Anything Else, And Happier. I Look; Morning To Night I Am Never Done With Looking. Looking I Mean Not Just Standing Around, But Standing Around As Though With Your Arms Open.

I Simply Do Not Distinguish Between Work And Play.

I Was Hurrying Through My Own Soul . . . I Was Leaning Out . . . I Was Listening.

You Only Have To Let The Soft Animal Of Your Body Love What It Loves.

It Is No Use Thinking That Writing Of Poems - The Actual Writing - Can Accommodate Itself To A Social Setting, Even The Most Sympathetic Social Setting Of A Workshop Composed Of Friends. It Cannot. The Work Improves There And Often The Will To Work Gets Valuable Nourishment And Ideas. But, For Good Reasons, The Poem Requires Of The Writer Not Society Or Instruction, But A Patch Of Profound And Unbroken Solitude.

My Work Is The World. Here The Sunflowers, There The Hummingbird - Equal Seekers Of Sweetness. Here The Quickening Yeast; There The Blue Plums.

The Poet Dreams Of The Classroom I Dreamed I Stood Up In Class And I Said Aloud: Teacher, Why Is Algebra Important? Sit Down, He Said. Then I Dreamed I Stood Up And I Said: Teacher, I’m Weary Of The Turkeys That We Have To Draw Every Fall. May I Draw A Fox Instead? Sit Down, He Said. Then I Dreamed I Stood Up Once More And Said: Teacher, My Heart Is Falling Asleep And It Wants To Wake Up. It Needs To Be Outside. Sit Down, He Said.

How Heron Comes It Is A Negligence Of The Mind Not To Notice How At Dusk Heron Comes To The Pond And Stands There In His Death Robes, Perfect Servant Of The System, Hungry, His Eyes Full Of Attention, His Wings Pure Light

All Eternity Is In The Moment.

It Was Not A Choice Of Writing Or Not Writing. It Was A Choice Of Loving My Life Or Not Loving My Life. To Keep Writing Was Always A First Priority.... I Worked Probably 25 Years By Myself.... Just Writing And Working, Not Trying To Publish Much. Not Giving Readings. A Longer Time Than People Really Are Willing To Commit Before They Want To Go Public.

So Every Day So Every Day I Was Surrounded By The Beautiful Crying Forth Of The Ideas Of God, One Of Which Was You.

Snow Was Falling, So Much Like Stars Filling The Dak Trees That One Could Easily Imagine Its Reason For Being Was Nothing More The Prettiness.

Ordinarily, I Go To The Woods Alone, With Not A Single Friend, For They Are All Smilers And Talkers And Therefore Unsuitable. I Don't Really Want To Be Witnessed Talking To The Catbirds Or Hugging The Old Black Oak Tree. I Have My Way Of Praying, As You No Doubt Have Yours. Besides, When I Am Alone I Can Become Invisible.

All My Life I Have Been Restless-- I Have Felt There Is Something More Wonderful Than Gloss-- Than Wholeness-- Than Staying At Home.

What I Have Done Is Learn To Love And Learn To Be Loved. That Didn't Come Easy.

I Would Say That There Exists A Thousand Unbreakable Links Between Each Of Us And Everything Else, And That Our Dignity And Our Chances Are One. The Farthest Star And The Mud At Our Feet Are A Family; And There Is No Decency Or Sense In Honoring One Thing, Or A Few Things, And Then Closing The List. The Pine Tree, The Leopard, The Platte River, And Ourselves-we Are At Risk Together, Or We Are On Our Way To A Sustainable World Together, We Are Each Other's Destiny.

It Is Better For The Heart To Break, Than Not To Break.

Special Education

Around Me The Trees Stir In Their Leaves And Call Out, Stay Awhile.

Praying It Doesn’t Have To Be The Blue Iris, It Could Be Weeds In A Vacant Lot, Or A Few Small Stones; Just Pay Attention, Then Patch A Few Words Together And Don’t Try To Make Them Elaborate, This Isn’t A Contest But The Doorway Into Thanks, And A Silence In Which Another Voice May Speak.

Today I Am Altogether Without Ambition. Where Did I Get Such Wisdom?

It's Very Important To Write Things Down Instantly, Or You Can Lose The Way You Were Thinking Out A Line. I Have A Rule That If I Wake Up At 3 In The Morning And Think Of Something, I Write It Down. I Can't Wait Until Morning - It'll Be Gone.

You Have To Be In The World To Understand What The Spiritual Is About, And You Have To Be Spiritual In Order To Truly Be Able To Accept What The World Is About.

When The Blackberries Hang Swollen In The Woods, In The Brambles Nobody Owns, I Spend All Day Among The High Branches, Reaching My Ripped Arms, Thinking Of Nothing, Cramming The Black Honey Of Summer Into My Mouth; All Day My Body Accepts What It Is. In The Dark Creeks That Run By There Is This Thick Paw Of My Life Darting Among The Black Bells, The Leaves; There Is This Happy Tongue.

One Thing I Do Know Is That Poetry, To Be Understood, Must Be Clear.

Going To Walden It Isn't Very Far As Highways Lie. I Might Be Back By Nightfall, Having Seen The Rough Pines, And The Stones, And The Clear Water. Friends Argue That I Might Be Wiser For It. They Do Not Hear That Far-off Yankee Whisper: How Dull We Grow From Hurrying Here And There! Many Have Gone, And Think Me Half A Fool To Miss A Day Away In The Cool Country. Maybe. But In A Book I Read And Cherish, Going To Walden Is Not So Easy A Thing As A Green Visit. It Is The Slow And Difficult Trick Of Living, And Finding It Where You Are.

We Do Not Love Anything More Deeply Than We Love A Story.

What Can We Do About God, Who Makes And Then Breaks Every God-forsaken, Beautiful Day?

So Come To The Pond, Or The River Of Your Imagination, Or The Harbor Of Your Longing, And Put Your Lips To The World. And Live Your Life.

A Dog Comes To You And Lives With You In Your Own House, But You Do Not Therefore Own Her, As You Do Not Own The Rain, Or The Trees, Or The Laws Which Pertain To Them ... A Dog Can Never Tell You What She Knows From The Smells Of The World, But You Know, Watching Her, That You Know Almost Nothing. . .

Do You Love This World? Do You Cherish Your Humble And Silky Life? Do You Adore The Green Grass, With Its Terror Beneath?

Attention Without Feeling Is Only A Report.

On Poetry: Everyone Wants To Know What It Means. But Nobody Is Asking, How Does It Feel?

I Went To India And Was Quite Taken With It. There's A Feeling There That Things Are Holy First And Useful Second. And In America, We Have It Backwards.

Every Morning I Walk Like This Around The Pond, Thinking: If The Doors Of My Heart Ever Close, I Am As Good As Dead.

I Don't Know Lots Of Things But I Know This: Next Year When Spring Flows Over The Starting Point I'll Think I'm Going To Drown In The Shimmering Miles Of It.

It's Not A Competition, It's A Doorway.

Special Education

As A Child, What Captivated Me Was Reading The Poems Myself And Realizing That There Was A World Without Material Substance Which Was Nevertheless As Alive As Any Other.

I Love The Line Of Flaubert About Observing Things Very Intensely. I Think Our Duty As Writers Begins Not With Our Own Feelings, But With The Powers Of Observing.

... To Write Well It Is Entirely Necessary To Read Widely And Deeply. Good Poems Are The Best Teachers.

I Want To Be Braver And More Honest About My Life. When You're Sexually Abused, There's A Lot Of Damage.

Still, What I Want In My Life Is To Be Willing To Be Dazzled-to Cast Aside The Weight Of Facts And Maybe Even To Float A Little Above This Difficult World. I Want To Believe I Am Looking Into The White Fire Of A Great Mystery. I Want To Believe That The Imperfections Are Nothing-that The Light Is Everything-that It Is More Than The Sum Of Each Flawed Blossom Rising And Fading. And I Do.

I Got Saved By Poetry. And I Got Saved By The Beauty Of The World.

Beauty Of The World

When Will You Have A Little Pity For Every Soft Thing That Walks Through The World, Yourself Included.

But I Also Say This: That Light Is An Invitation To Happiness, And That Happiness, When It's Done Right, Is A Kind Of Holiness, Palpable And Redemptive.

Look For Verbs Of Muscle, Adjectives Of Exactitude.

We Shake With Joy, We Shake With Grief. What A Time They Have, These Two Housed As They Are In The Same Body.

Life Is Much The Same When It's Going Well-- Resonant And Unremarkable. But Who, Not Under Disaster's Seal, Can Understand What Life Is Like When It Begins To Crumble?

What Misery To Be Afraid Of Death. What Wretchedness, To Believe Only In What Can Be Proven.

Afraid Of Death

Tell Me What It Is You Plan To Do With Your One Wild And Precious Life? When It's Over, I Want To Say: All My Life I Was A Bride, Married To Amazement. I Was The Bridegroom, Taking The World Into My Arms. Instructions For Living A Life: Pay Attention. Be Astonished. Tell About It.

I Climb, I Backtrack. I Float. I Ramble My Way Home.

And I Do Not Want Anymore To Be Useful, To Be Docile, To Lead / Children Out Of The Fields Into The Text / Of Civility, To Teach Them That They Are (they Are Not) Better Than The Grass.

Mornings At Blackwater" For Years, Every Morning, I Drank From Blackwater Pond. It Was Flavored With Oak Leaves And Also, No Doubt, The Feet Of Ducks. And Always It Assuaged Me From The Dry Bowl Of The Very Far Past. What I Want To Say Is That The Past Is The Past, And The Present Is What Your Life Is, And You Are Capable Of Choosing What That Will Be, Darling Citizen. So Come To The Pond, Or The River Of Your Imagination, Or The Harbor Of Your Longing, And Put Your Lips To The World. And Live Your Life.

Ten Times A Day Something Happens To Me Like This - Some Strengthening Throb Of Amazement - Some Good Sweet Empathic Ping And Swell. This Is The First, The Wildest And The Wisest Thing I Know: That The Soul Exists And Is Built Entirely Out Of Attentiveness.

We Need Beauty Because It Makes Us Ache To Be Worthy Of It.

Invention Hovers Always A Little Above The Rules.

Don't We All Die Someday And Someday Comes All Too Soon? What Will You Do With Your Own Wild, Glorious Chance At This Thing We Call Life.

Belief Isn't Always Easy. But This Much I Have Learned--- If Not Enough Else--- To Live With My Eyes Open.

The Sea Can Do Craziness, It Can Do Smooth, It Can Lie Down Like Silk Breathing Or Toss Havoc Shoreward; It Can Give Gifts Or Withhold All; It Can Rise, Ebb, Froth Like An Incoming Frenzy Of Fountains, Or It Can Sweet-talk Entirely. As I Can Too, And So, No Doubt, Can You, And You.

Things Take The Time They Take. Don't Worry.

I Wanted The Past To Go Away, I Wanted To Leave It, Like Another Country; I Wanted My Life To Close, And Open Like A Hinge, Like A Wing, Like The Part Of The Song Where It Falls Down Over The Rocks: An Explosion, A Discovery; I Wanted To Hurry Into The Work Of My Life; I Wanted To Know, Whoever I Was, I Was Alive For A Little While.

Keep Some Room In Your Heart For The Unimaginable.

Like Magellan, Let Us Find Our Islands To Die In, Far From Home, From Anywhere Familiar. Let Us Risk The Wildest Places, Lest We Go Down In Comfort, And Despair.

Rhythm Is One Of The Most Powerful Of Pleasures, And When We Feel A Pleasurable Rhythm We Hope It Will Continue. When It Does, It Grows Sweeter.

When Loneliness Comes Stalking, Go Into The Fields, Consider The Orderliness Of The World.

It Is The Nature Of Stone To Be Satisfied. It Is The Nature Of Water To Want To Be Somewhere Else.

I Have Trouble With Some Books Because I'm So Much In Agreement With Them I'd Rather Just Sit In The Grass Myself.

You May Not Agree, You May Not Care, But If You Are Holding This Book You Should Know That Of All The Sights I Love In This World — And There Are Plenty — Very Near The Top Of The List Is This One: Dogs Without Leashes.

In College, You Learn How To Learn. Four Years Is Not Too Much Time To Spend At That.

As Long As You're Dancing, You Can Break The Rules.

The Sea Isn't A Place But A Fact, And A Mystery.

The End Of Life Has Its Own Nature, Also Worth Our Attention.

It's Morning, And Again I Am That Lucky Person Who Is In It.

I Took One Look And Fell, Hook And Tumble.

Also I Wanted To Be Able To Love And We All Know How That One Goes, Don't We? Slowly

When Death Comes…. I Want To Step Through The Door Full Of Curiosity, Wondering: What It’s Going To Be Like, That Cottage Of Darkness? And Therefore I Look Upon Everything As A Brotherhood And A Sisterhood, And I Look Upon Time As No More Than An Idea, And I Consider Eternity As Another Possibility, And I Think Of Each Life As A Flower, As Common As A Field Daisy, And As Singular, And Each Name A Comfortable Music In The Mouth, Tending, As All Music Does, Toward Silence, And Each Body As A Lion Of Courage, And Something Precious To The Earth. [from The Poem "when Death Comes"]

Why Should I Not Sit, Every Morning Of My Life, On The Hillside, Looking Into The Shining World?

Do You Cherish Your Humble And Silky Life?

Today Again I Am Hardly Myself. It Happens Over And Over.

Sing, If You Can Sing, And It Not Still Be Musical Inside Yourself.

We All Have A Hungry Heart, And One Of The Things We Hunger For Is Happiness.

With Words, I Could Build A World I Could Live In. I Had A Very Dysfunctional Family, And A Very Hard Childhood. So I Made A World Out Of Words. And It Was My Salvation.

Dysfunctional Family

From The Complications Of Loving You I Think There Is No End Or Return. No Answer, No Coming Out Of It. Which Is The Only Way To Love, Isn't It? This Isn't A Playground, This Is Earth, Our Heaven, For A While. Therefore I Have Given Precedence To All My Sudden, Sullen, Dark Moods That Hold You In The Center Of My World. And I Say To My Body: Grow Thinner Still. And I Say To My Fingers, Type Me A Pretty Song. And I Say To My Heart: Rave On.

Every Day I See Or Hear Something That More Or Less Kills Me With Delight, That Leaves Me Like A Needle In The Haystack Of Light.

I Was Very Careful Never To Take An Interesting Job. If You Have An Interesting Job, You Get Interested In It.

Come With Me Into The Woods Where Spring Is Advancing, As It Does, No Matter What, Not Being Singular Or Particular, But One Of The Forever Gifts, And Certainly Visible.

Who Do You Want To Be In Your One Wild And Precious Life?

We All Have A Hungry Heart, And One Of The Things We Hunger For Is Happiness. So As Much As I Possibly Could, I Stayed Where I Was Happy. I Spent A Great Deal Of Time In My Younger Years Just Writing And Reading, Walking Around The Woods In Ohio, Where I Grew Up.

Who Knows What Will Happen Or Where I Will Be Sent, Yet Already I Have Given A Great Many Things Away, Expecting To Be Told To Pack Nothing, Except The Prayers Which, With This Thirst, I Am Slowly Learning.

Truly, We Live With Mysteries Too Marvelous To Be Understood. How Grass Can Be Nourishing In The Mouths Of The Lambs. How Rivers And Stones Are Forever In Allegiance With Gravity While We Ourselves Dream Of Rising.

In This Universe We Are Given Two Gifts: The Ability To Love And The Ability To Question. Which Are, At The Same Time, The Fires That Warm Us And The Fires That Scorch Us.

Ability To Love

You, Too, Can Be Carved Anew By The Details Of Your Devotion.

Why I Wake Early Hello, Sun In My Face. Hello, You Who Made The Morning And Spread It Over The Fields And Into The Faces Of The Tulips And The Nodding Morning Glories, And Into The Windows Of, Even, The Miserable And The Crotchety – Best Preacher That Ever Was, Dear Star, That Just Happens To Be Where You Are In The Universe To Keep Us From Ever-darkness, To Ease Us With Warm Touching, To Hold Us In The Great Hands Of Light – Good Morning, Good Morning, Good Morning. Watch, Now, How I Start The Day In Happiness, In Kindness.

And Now I Understand Something So Frightening &wonderful- How The Mind Clings To The Road It Knows, Rushing Through Crossroads, Sticking Like Lint To The Familiar.

A Mind That Is Lively And Inquiring, Compassionate, Curious, Angry, Full Of Music, Full Of Feeling, Is A Mind Full Of Possible Poetry.

The Sweetness Of Dogs (fifteen) What Do You Say, Percy? I Am Thinking Of Sitting Out On The Sand To Watch The Moon Rise. Full Tonight. So We Go And The Moon Rises, So Beautiful It Makes Me Shudder, Makes Me Think About Time And Space, Makes Me Take Measure Of Myself: One Iota Pondering Heaven. Thus We Sit, I Thinking How Grateful I Am For The Moon’s Perfect Beauty And Also, Oh! How Rich It Is To Love The World. Percy, Meanwhile, Leans Against Me And Gazes Up Into My Face. As Though I Were His Perfect Moon.

I Know Death Is The Fascinating Snake Under The Leaves, Sliding And Sliding; I Know The Heart Loves Him Too, Can't Turn Away, Can't Break The Spell. Everything Wants To Enter The Slow Thickness, Aches To Be Peaceful Finally And At Any Cost. Wants To Be Stone.

Maybe The World, Without Us, Is The Real Poem.

I Know I Can Walk Through The World, Along The Shore Or Under The Trees, With My Mind Filled With Things Of Little Importance, In Full Self-attendance. A Condition I Can't Really Call Being Alive.

Sometimes I Spend All Day Trying To Count The Leaves On A Single Tree... Of Course I Have To Give Up, But By Then I'm Half Crazy With The Wonder Of It--the Abundance Of The Leaves, The Quietness Of The Branches, The Hopelessness Of My Effort. And I Am In That Delicious And Important Place, Roaring With Laughter, Full Of Earth-praise.

I Tell You This To Break Your Heart, By Which I Mean Only That It Break Open And Never Close Again To The Rest Of The World.

I Don't Ask For The Sights In Front Of Me To Change, Only The Depth Of My Seeing.

...there Was A New Voice Which You Slowly Recognized As Your Own, That Kept You Company As You Strode Deeper And Deeper Into The World, Determined To Do The Only Thing You Could Do -- Determined To Save The Only Life You Could Save.

Every Day I Walk Out Into The World / To Be Dazzled, Then To Be Reflective.

Every Year Everything I Have Ever Learned In My Lifetime Leads Back To This: The Fires And The Black River Of Loss Whose Other Side Is Salvation

Still, What I Want In My Life Is To Be Willing To Be Dazzled---to Cast Aside The Weight Of Facts And Maybe Even To Float A Little Above This Difficult World.

It Doesn't Have To Be The Blue Iris, It Could Be Weeds In A Vacant Lot, Or A Few Small Stones; Just Pay Attention, Then Patch A Few Words Together And Don't Try To Make Them Elaborate, This Isn't A Contest But The Doorway Into Thanks, And A Silence In Which Another Voice May Speak.

And It Is Exceedingly Short, His Galloping Life. Dogs Die So Soon. I Have My Stories Of That Grief, No Doubt Many Of You Do Also. It Is Almost A Failure Of Will, A Failure Of Love, To Let Them Grow Old-or So It Feels. We Would Do Anything To Keep Them With Us, And To Keep Them Young. The One Gift We Cannot Give.

I Thought The Earth Remembered Me, She Took Me Back So Tenderly, Arranging Her Dark Skirts, Her Pockets Full Of Lichens And Seeds. I Slept As Never Before, A Stone On The River Bed, Nothing Between Me And The White Fire Of The Stars.

A Lifetime Isn't Long Enough For The Beauty Of This World And The Responsibilities Of Your Life.

The End Of Life Has Its Own Nature, Also Worth Our Attention. I Don't Say This Without Reckoning In The Sorrow, The Worry, The Many Diminishments. But Surely It Is Then That A Person's Character Shines Or Glooms.

I Read The Way A Person Might Swim, To Save His Or Her Life. I Wrote That Way Too.

The Dream Of My Life Is To Lie Down By A Slow River And Stare At The Light In The Trees - To Learn Something By Being Nothing

So This Is How You Swim Inward. So This Is How You Flow Outwards. So This Is How You Pray.

Isn’t It Wonderful The Way The World Holds Both The Deeply Serious, And The Unexpectedly Mirthful?

You Must Not Ever Stop Being Whimsical. And You Must Not, Ever, Give Anyone Else The Responsibility For Your Life.

There Are A Hundred Paths Through The World That Are Easier Than Loving. But Who Wants Easier?

Are My Boots Old? Is My Coat Torn? / Am I No Longer Young, And Still Not Half-perfect?

I Wanted To Hurry Into The Work Of My Life; I Wanted To Know, Whoever I Was, I Was Alive For A Little While.

I've Always Wanted To Write Poems And Nothing Else.

There Is A Notion That Creative People Are Absent-minded, Reckless, Heedless Of Social Customs And Obligations. It Is, Hopefully, True For They Are In Another World Altogether.

...sometimes I Dream That Everything In The World Is Here, In My Room, In A Great Closet, Named And Orderly, And I Am Here Too, In Front Of It, Hardly Able To See For The Flash And The Brightness- And Sometimes I Am That Madcap Person Clapping My Hands And Singing; And Sometimes I Am That Quiet Person Down On My Knees.

You Never Know / What Opportunity / Is Going To Travel To You, / Or Through You.

Someone I Loved Once Gave Me A Box Full Of Darkness. It Took Me Years To Understand That This Too, Was A Gift.

There Is Only One Question: / How To Love This World.

There Were Times Over The Years When Life Was Not Easy, But If You're Working A Few Hours A Day And You've Got A Good Book To Read, And You Can Go Outside To The Beach And Dig For Clams, You're Okay.

And That Is Just The Point... How The World, Moist And Beautiful, Calls To Each Of Us To Make A New And Serious Response. That's The Big Question, The One The World Throws At You Every Morning. "here You Are, Alive. Would You Like To Make A Comment?

Maybe Death Isn't Darkness, After All, But So Much Light Wrapping Itself Around Us--

Everybody Has To Have Their Little Tooth Of Power. Everybody Wants To Be Able To Bite.

...whoever You Are, Not Matter How Lonely The World Offers Itself To Your Imagination, Calls To You Like The Wild Geese, Harsh & Exciting - Over & Over Announcing Your Place In The Family Of Things.

Love, Love, Love, Says Percy. And Hurry As Fast As You Can Along The Shining Beach, Or The Rubble, Or The Dust. Then, Go To Sleep. Give Up Your Body Heat, Your Beating Heart. Then, Trust.

But The Owls Themselves Are Not Hard To Find, Silent And On The Wing, With Their Ear Tufts Flat Against Their Heads As They Fly And Their Huge Wings Alternately Gliding And Flapping As They Maneuver Through The Trees. Athena's Owl Of Wisdom And Merlin's Companion, Archimedes, Were Screech Owls Surely, Not This Bird With The Glassy Gaze, Restless On The Bough, Nothing But Blood On Its Mind.

I Consider Myself Kind Of A Reporter - One Who Uses Words That Are More Like Music And That Have A Choreography. I Never Think Of Myself As A Poet; I Just Get Up And Write.

Walks Work For Me. I Enter Some Arena That Is Neither Conscious Or Unconscious.

A Fact: One Picks It Up And Reads It, And Puts It Down, And There Is An End To It. But An Idea! That One May Pick Up, And Reflect Upon, And Oppose, And Expand, And So Pass A Delightful Afternoon Altogether.

Love Yourself. Then Forget It. Then, Love The World.

Special Education

Tom Dancer’s Gift Of A Whitebark Pine Cone You Never Know What Opportunity Is Going To Travel To You, Or Through You. Once A Friend Gave Me A Small Pine Cone- One Of A Few He Found In The Scat Of A Grizzly In Utah Maybe, Or Wyoming. I Took It Home And Did What I Supposed He Was Sure I Would Do- I Ate It, Thinking How It Had Traveled Through That Rough And Holy Body. It Was Crisp And Sweet. It Was Almost A Prayer Without Words. My Gratitude, Tom Dancer, For This Gift Of The World I Adore So Much And Want To Belong To. And Thank You Too, Great Bear

This Is The First, Wildest, And Wisest Thing I Know, That The Soul Exists, And That It Is Built Entirely Out Of Attention.

One Day You Finally Knew What You Had To Do, And Began.

And Over One More Set Of Hills, Along The Sea, The Last Roses Have Opened Their Factories Of Sweetness And Are Giving It Back To The World. If I Had Another Life I Would Want To Spend It All On Some Unstinting Happiness.

You Do Not Have To Be Good. You Do Not Have To Walk On Your Knees For A Hundred Miles Through The Desert, Repenting. You Only Have To Let The Soft Animal Of Your Body Love What It Loves.

Joy Is Not Made To Be A Crumb. (don't Hesitate)

If You Have Ever Gone Into The Woods With Me, I Must Love You Very Much.

After A Cruel Childhood, One Must Reinvent Oneself. Then Reimagine The World.

I Want To Write Something So Simply About Love Or About Pain That Even As You Are Reading You Feel It And As You Read You Keep Feeling It And Though It Be My Story It Will Be Common, Though It Be Singular It Will Be Known To You So That By The End You Will Think— No, You Will Realize— That It Was All The While Yourself Arranging The Words, That It Was All The Time Words That You Yourself, Out Of Your Heart Had Been Saying.

On The Beach, At Dawn: Four Small Stones Clearly Hugging Each Other. How Many Kinds Of Love Might There Be In The World, And How Many Formations Might They Make And Who Am I Ever To Imagine I Could Know Such A Marvelous Business? When The Sun Broke It Poured Willingly Its Light Over The Stones That Did Not Move, Not At All, Just As, To Its Always Generous Term, It Shed Its Light On Me, My Own Body That Loves, Equally, To Hug Another Body.

It Is What I Was Born For - To Look, To Listen, To Lose Myself Inside This Soft World - To Instruct Myself Over And Over.

I Thought The Earth Remembered Me, She Took Me Back So Tenderly, Arranging Her Dark Skirts, Her Pockets Full Of Lichens And Seeds. I Slept As Never Before, A Stone On The River Bed, Nothing Between Me And The White Fire Of The Stars But My Thoughts, And They Floated Light As Moths Among The Branches Of The Perfect Trees. All Night I Heard The Small Kingdoms Breathing Around Me, The Insects, And The Birds Who Do Their Work In The Darkness. All Night I Rose And Fell, As If In Water, Grappling With A Luminous Doom. By Morning I Had Vanished At Least A Dozen Times Into Something Better.

I Very Much Wished Not To Be Noticed, And To Be Left Alone, And I Sort Of Succeeded.

Oh, Yesterday, That One, We All Cry Out. Oh, That One! How Rich And Possible Everything Was! How Ripe, Ready, Lavish, And Filled With Excitement--how Hopeful We Were On Those Summer Days, Under The Clean, White Racing Clouds. Oh, Yesterday!

Poetry Is A Serious Business; Literature Is The Apparatus Through Which The World Tries To Keep Intact Its Important Ideas And Feelings.

Writing A Poem ... Is A Kind Of Possible Love Affair Between Something Like The Heart (that Courageous But Also Shy Factory Of Emotion) And The Learned Skills Of The Conscious Mind.

When I Am Alone I Can Become Invisible. I Can Sit On The Top Of A Dune As Motionless As An Uprise Of Weeds, Until The Foxes Run By Unconcerned. I Can Hear The Almost Unhearable Sound Of The Roses Singing.

And There You Are On The Shore, Fitful And Thoughtful, Trying To Attach Them To An Idea — Some News Of Your Own Life. But The Lilies Are Slippery And Wild—they Are Devoid Of Meaning, They Are Simply Doing, From The Deepest Spurs Of Their Being, What They Are Impelled To Do Every Summer. And So, Dear Sorrow, Are You.

We Can Know A Lot. And Still, No Doubt, There Are Rash And Wonderful Ideas Brewing Somewhere; There Are Many Surprises Yet To Come.

How Many Mysteries Have You Seen In Your Lifetime? How Many Nets Pulled Full Over The Boat's Side, Each Silver Body Ready Or Not Falling Into Submission? How Many Roses In Early Summer Uncurling Above The Pale Sands Then Falling Back In Unfathomable Willingness? And What Can You Say? Glory To The Rose And The Leaf, To The Seed, To The Silver Fish. Glory To Time And The Wild Fields, And To Joy. And To Grief's Shock And Torpor, Its Near Swoon.

I Don't Know Exactly What A Prayer Is. I Do Know How To Pay Attention.

How Precious Life Is

The Poem In Which The Reader Does Not Feel Himself Or Herself A Participant Is A Lecture, Listened To From An Uncomfortable Chair, In A Stuffy Room, Inside A Building.

Instructions For Living A Life. Pay Attention. Be Astonished. Tell About It.

The Most Regretful People On Earth Are Those Who Felt The Call To Creative Work, Who Felt Their Own Creative Power Restive And Uprising, And Gave To It Neither Power Nor Time.

I Go Down To The Shore I Go Down To The Shore In The Morning And Depending On The Hour The Waves Are Rolling In Or Moving Out, And I Say, Oh, I Am Miserable, What Shall— What Should I Do? And The Sea Says In Its Lovely Voice: Excuse Me, I Have Work To Do.

Each Body Is A Lion Of Courage, Something Precious Of The Earth.

I Feel The Terror Of Idleness, Like A Red Thirst. Death Isn't Just An Idea.

Music: What So Many Sentences Aspire To Be.

Let Me Keep My Mind On What Matters, Which Is My Work, Which Is Mostly Standing Still And Learning To Be Astonished.

A Dog Is Adorable And Noble, A Dog Is A True And Loving Friend. A Dog Is Also A Hedonist.

... The Natural World Is The Old River That Runs Through Everything, And I Think Poets Will Forever Fish Along Its Shores.

The Sea Is The Most Beautiful Face In Our Universe.

Wherever I Am, The World Comes After Me. It Offers Me Its Busyness. It Does Not Believe That I Do Not Want It. Now I Understand Why The Old Poets Of China Went So Far And High Into The Mountains, Then Crept Into The Pale Mist.

Sometimes I Need Only To Stand Wherever I Am To Be Blessed.

Wild Sings The Bird Of The Heart In The Forests Of Our Lives.

The Poet Must Not Only Write The Poem But Must Scrutinize The World Intensely, Or Anyway That Part Of The World He Or She Has Taken For Subject. If The Poem Is Thin, It Is Likely So Not Because The Poet Does Not Know Enough Words, But Because He Or She Has Not Stood Long Enough Among The Flowers--has Not Seen Them In Any Fresh, Exciting, And Valid Way.

I Worked Probably 25 Years By Myself, Just Writing And Working, Not Trying To Publish Much, Not Giving Readings.

When It's Over, I Want To Say: All My Life I Was A Bride Married To Amazement. I Was The Bridegroom, Taking The World Into My Arms.

I Know Many Lives Worth Living.

Life Worth Living

When It's Over I Don't Want To Wonder If I Have Made Of My Life Something Particular, And Real.

I Believe Art Is Utterly Important. It Is One Of The Things That Could Save Us. We Don't Have To Rely Totally On Experience If We Can Do Things In Our Imagination.... It's The Only Way In Which You Can Live More Lives Than Your Own. You Can Escape Your Own Time, Your Own Sensibility, Your Own Narrowness Of Vision.

Poetry Is A Life-cherishing Force.

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Joseph Goebbels

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