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I Learned To Build Bookshelves And Brought Books To My Room, Gathering Them Around Me Thickly. I Read By Day And Into The Night. I Thought About Perfectibility, And Deism, And Adjectives, And Clouds, And The Foxes, I Locked My Door, From The Inside, And Leaped From The Roof And Went To The Woods, By Day Or Darkness.

-Mary Oliver

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I Learned To Build

Mary Oliver

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I Learned To Build Bookshelves And Brought Books To My Room, Gathering Them Around Me Thickly. I Read By Day And Into The Night. I Thought About Perfectibility, And Deism, And Adjectives, And Clouds, And The Foxes, I Locked My Door, From The Inside, And Leaped From The Roof And Went To The Woods, By Day Or Darkness.

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

In Your Hands The Dog, The Donkey, Surely They Know They Are Alive. Who Would Argue Otherwise? But Now, After Years Of Consideration, I Am Getting Beyond That. What About The Sunflowers? What About The Tulips, And The Pines? Listen, All You Have To Do Is Start And There’ll Be No Stopping. What About Mountains? What About Water Slipping Over Rocks? And Speaking Of Stones, What About The Little Ones You Can Hold In Your Hands, Their Heartbeats So Secret, So Hidden It May Take Years Before, Finally, You Hear Them?

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.

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.

Keep Some Room In Your Heart For The Unimaginable.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Said The River: Imagine Everything You Can Imagine, Then Keep On Going.

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

And I Say To My Heart: Rave On.

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

Every Adjective And Adverb Is Worth Five Cents. Every Verb Is Worth Fifty Cents.

Adjectives And Adverbs

The Language Of The Poem Is The Language Of Particulars.

My First Two Books Are Out Of Print And, Okay, They Can Sleep There Comfortably. It's Early Work, Derivative Work.

The Face Of The Moose Is As Sad As The Face Of Jesus.

I Don't Want To End Up Simply Having Visited This World.

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

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.

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

I Do Not Live Happily Or Comfortably With The Cleverness Of Our Times. The Talk Is All About Computers, The News Is All About Bombs And Blood. This Morning, In The Fresh Field, I Came Upon A Hidden Nest. It Held Four Warm, Speckled Eggs. I Touched Them. Then Went Away Softly, Having Felt Something More Wonderful Than All The Electricity Of New York City.

Attention Without Feeling Is Only A Report.

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

I Think One Thing Is That Prayer Has Become More Useful, Interesting, Fruitful, And... Almost Involuntary In My Life.

Language Is, In Other Words, Not Necessary, But Voluntary. If It Were Necessary, It Would Have Stayed Simple; It Would Not Agitate Our Hearts With Ever-present Loveliness And Ever-cresting Ambiguity; It Would Not Dream, On Its Long White Bones, Of Turning Into Song.

You Can Have The Other Words-chance, Luck, Coincidence, Serendipity. I'll Take Grace. I Don't Know What It Is Exactly, But I'll Take It.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Attention Is The Beginning Of Devotion.

I Believe In Kindness. Also In Mischief. Also In Singing, Especially When Singing Is Not Necessarily Prescribed.

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

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

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

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

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.

... Let Us Risk The Wildest Places, Lest We Go Down In Comfort, And Despair.

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

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. . .

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.

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.

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

Afraid Of Death

Can One Be Passionate About The Just, The Ideal, The Sublime, And The Holy, And Yet Commit No Labor In Its Cause? I Don't Think So. All Summations Have A Beginning, All Effect Has A Story, All Kindness Beings With The Sown Seed. Thought Buds Toward Radiance. The Gospel Of Light Is The Crossroads Of - Indolence, Or Action. Be Ignited Or Be Gone.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Special Education

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If I've Done My Work Well, I Vanish Completely From The Scene. I Believe It Is Invasive Of The Work When You Know Too Much About The Writer.

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

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.

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

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

How Precious Life Is

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

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.

The World Is: Fun, And Familiar, And Healthful, And Unbelievably Refreshing, And Lovely. And It Is The Theater Of The Spiritual; It Is The Multiform Utterly Obedient To A Mystery.

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

For Some Things There Are No Wrong Seasons. Which Is What I Dream Of For Me.

I Try To Be Good But Sometimes A Person Just Has To Break Out And Act Like The Wild And Springy Thing One Used To Be. It's Impossible Not To Remember Wild An Want It Back.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

When When It’s Over, It’s Over, And We Don’t Know Any Of Us, What Happens Then. So I Try Not To Miss Anything. I Think, In My Whole Life, I Have Never Missed The Full Moon Or The Slipper Of Its Coming Back. Or, A Kiss. Well, Yes, Especially A Kiss.

I Grew Up In A Sad, Depressed Place. I Got Out. Poetry Saved My Life.

To Find A New Word That Is Accurate And Different, You Have To Be Alert For It.

For Poems Are Not Words, After All, But Fires For The Cold, Ropes Let Down To The Lost, Something As Necessary As Bread In The Pockets Of The Hungry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

I Learned To Build Bookshelves And Brought Books To My Room, Gathering Them Around Me Thickly. I Read By Day And Into The Night. I Thought About Perfectibility, And Deism, And Adjectives, And Clouds, And The Foxes, I Locked My Door, From The Inside, And Leaped From The Roof And Went To The Woods, By Day Or Darkness.

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

And Who Will Care, Who Will Chide You If You Wander Away From Wherever You Are, To Look For Your Soul?

Poetry Is One Of The Ancient Arts, And It Began, As Did All The Fine Arts, Within The Original Wilderness Of The Earth. Also, It Began Through The Process Of Seeing, And Feeling, And Hearing, And Smelling, And Touching, And Then Remembering--i Mean Remembering In Words--what These Perceptual Experiences Were Like, While Trying To Describe The Endless Invisible Fears And Desires Of Our Inner Lives.

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.

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

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"]

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?

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.

And Now My Old Dog Is Dead, And Another I Had After Him, And My Parents Are Dead, And That First World, That Old House, Is Sold And Lost, And The Books I Gathered There Lost, Or Sold- But More Books Bought, And In Another Place, Board By Board And Stone By Stone, Like A House, A True Life Built, And All Because I Was Steadfast About One Or Two Things: Loving Foxes, And Poems, The Blank Piece Of Paper, And My Own Energy- And Mostly The Shimmering Shoulders Of The World That Shrug Carelessly Over The Fate Of Any Individual That They May, The Better, Keep The Niles And Amazons Flowing.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

My Work Is Loving The World.

Look For Verbs Of Muscle, Adjectives Of Exactitude.

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

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

I Held My Breath As We Do Sometimes To Stop Time When Something Wonderful Has Touched Us.

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

Of Course! The Path To Heaven Doesn't Lie Down In Flat Miles. It's In The Imagination With Which You Perceive This World, And The Gestures With Which You Honor It.

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

Children Play Earnestly As If It Were Work. But People Grow Up, And They Work With A Sorrow Upon Them. It's Duty.

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

The God Of Dirt Came Up To Me Many Times And Said So Many Wise And Delectable Things, I Lay On The Grass Listening To His Dog Voice, Frog Voice; Now, He Said, And Now, And Never Once Mentioned Forever From, One Or Two Things

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

Tell Me, What Is It You Plan To Do With Your One Wild And Precious Life?

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

Special Education

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.

Poetry Is A River; Many Voices Travel In It; Poem After Poem Moves Along In The Exciting Crests And Falls Of The River Waves. None Is Timeless; Each Arrives In An Historical Context; Almost Everything, In The End, Passes. But The Desire To Make A Poem, And The World's Willingness To Receive It--indeed The World's Need Of It--these Never Pass.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

He Is Exactly The Poem I Wanted To Write.

I Have A Little Dog Who Likes To Nap With Me. He Climbs On My Body And Puts His Face In My Neck. He Is Sweeter Than Soap. He Is More Wonderful Than A Diamond Necklace, Which Can't Even Bark.

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.

Music: What So Many Sentences Aspire To Be.

...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.

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.

Because Of The Dog’s Joyfulness, Our Own Is Increased. It Is No Small Gift.

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.

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

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.

Little Dogs Rhapsody In The Night (percy Three) He Puts His Cheek Against Mine And Makes Small, Expressive Sounds. And When I'm Awake, Or Awake Enough He Turns Upside Down, His Four Paws In The Air And His Eyes Dark And Fervent. Tell Me You Love Me, He Says. Tell Me Again. Could There Be A Sweeter Arrangement? Over And Over He Gets To Ask It. I Get To Tell.

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

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

Special Education

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

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

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

Things Take The Time They Take. Don't Worry. How Many Roads Did St. Augustine Follow Before He Became St. Augustine?

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.

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

The Challenge Is To Keep Up With All The New Poets At The Same Time I Love The Old Ones.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Whoever You Are, No Matter How Lonely, The World Offers Itself To Your Imagination.

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.

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.

Drive Down Any Road, Take A Train Or An Airplane Across The World, Leave Your Old Life Behind, Die And Be Born Again~ Wherever You Arrive They'll Be There First, Glossy And Rowdy And Indistinguishable. The Deep Muscle Of The World.

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.

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.

Writers Sometimes Give Up What Is Most Strange And Wonderful About Their Writing - Soften Their Roughest Edges - To Accommodate Themselves Toward A Group Response.

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.

...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.

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.

I Have A Notebook With Me All The Time, And I Begin Scribbling A Few Words. When Things Are Going Well, The Walk Does Not Get Anywhere; I Finally Just Stop And Write.

Oh, To Love What Is Lovely, And Will Not Last! What A Task To Ask Of Anything, Or Anyone, Yet It Is Ours, And Not By The Century Or The Year, But By The Hours.

At Blackwater Pond The Tossed Waters Have Settled After A Night Of Rain. I Dip My Cupped Hands. I Drink A Long Time. It Tastes Like Stone, Leaves, Fire. It Falls Cold Into My Body, Waking The Bones. I Hear Them Deep Inside Me, Whispering Oh What Is That Beautiful Thing That Just Happened?

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.

Tell Me About Despair, Yours, And I Will Tell You Mine

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.

Always There Is Something Worth Saying About Glory, About Gratitude.

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

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

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 You'll Be Telling Stories Of My Coming Back And They Won't Be False, And They Won't Be True But They'll Be Real

I Simply Do Not Distinguish Between Work And Play.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

You Are Young. So You Know Everything. You Leap Into The Boat And Begin Rowing. But, Listen To Me. Without Fanfare, Without Embarrassment, Without Doubt,i Talk Directly To Your Soul. Listen To Me.

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.

Far Off In The Red Mangroves An Alligator Has Heaved Himself Onto A Hummock Of Grass And Lies There, Studying His Poems.

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.

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

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

Almost Anything Is Too Much. I Am Trying In My Poems To Have The Reader Be The Experiencer. I Do Not Want To Be There. It Is Not Even A Walk We Take Together.

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.

Poetry Is A Life-cherishing Force.

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

In The Glare Of Your Mind, Be Modest. And Beholden To What Is Tactile, And Thrilling.

Be Good-natured And Untidy In Your Exuberance.

I Want To Believe I Am Looking Into The White Fire Of A Great Mystery.

Ordinarily, I Go To The Woods Alone. When I'm Alone I Can Hear The Almost Unhearable Sound Of The Roses Singing. If You Have Ever Gone To The Woods With Me, I Must Love You Very Much.

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Eduardo Chillida

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