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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.

-Mary Oliver

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It Is No Use

Mary Oliver

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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.

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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.

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

Special Education

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

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?

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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

Look, Hasn't My Body Already Felt Like The Body Of A Flower?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Invention Hovers Always A Little Above The Rules.

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.

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.

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.

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

Hello, Sun In My Face. Hello You Who Made The Morning And Spread It Over The Fields...watch, Now, How I Start The Day In Happiness, In Kindness.

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

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

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

Special Education

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

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

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.

Music: What So Many Sentences Aspire To Be.

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

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.

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"]

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

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

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.

...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.

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.

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

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

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.

Be Good-natured And Untidy In Your Exuberance.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Poetry Is A Life-cherishing Force.

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

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.

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

Keep Some Room In Your Heart For The Unimaginable.

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

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 It Can Keep You As Busy As Anything Else, And Happier.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Three Ingredients Of Poetry: The Mystery Of The Universe, Spiritual Curiosity, The Energy Of Language.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

I Want To Think Again Of Dangerous And Noble Things. I Want To Be Light And Frolicsome. I Want To Be Improbable And Beautiful And Afraid Of Nothing As Though I Had Wings.

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

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

He Is Exactly The Poem I Wanted To Write.

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

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.

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

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

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

Do You Cherish Your Humble And Silky Life?

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.

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

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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 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.

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?

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

I Believe In Kindness. Also In Mischief.

...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.

The Stars Began To Burn Through The Sheets Of Clouds, And There Was A New Voice Which You Slowly Recognized As Your Own.

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.

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

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.

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

Attention Without Feeling Is Only A Report.

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

...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.

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

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

I Have A Notion That If You Are Going To Be Spiritually Curious, You Better Not Get Cluttered Up With Too Many Material Things.

Follow Your Dreams

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Poetry Isn't A Profession, It's A Way Of Life. It's An Empty Basket; You Put Your Life Into It And Make Something Out Of That.

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

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.

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

Poetry Is One Of The Original Arts, And It Began, As Did All The Fine Arts, Within The Original Wilderness Of The Earth.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Special Education

Sunrise What Is The Name Of The Deep Breath I Would Take Over And Over For All Of Us? Call It Whatever You Want, It Is Happiness, It Is Another One Of The Ways To Enter Fire.

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.

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.

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

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

Afraid Of Death

All Culture Developed As Some Wild, Raw Creature Strived To Live Better And Longer.

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.

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

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 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.

The Language Of The Poem Is The Language Of Particulars.

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

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.

Emerson, I Am Trying To Live, As You Said We Must, The Examined Life. But There Are Days I Wish There Was Less In My Head To Examine, Not To Speak Of The Busy Heart.

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

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

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.

And I Say To My Heart: Rave On.

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

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

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 Don't Know Exactly What A Prayer Is. I Do Know How To Pay Attention, How To Fall Down Into The Grass, How To Kneel Down In The Grass, How To Be Idle And Blessed, How To Stroll Through The Fields, Which Is What I Have Been Doing All Day. 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?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Adjectives And Adverbs

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

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 Simply Do Not Distinguish Between Work And Play.

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.

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.

Look For Verbs Of Muscle, Adjectives Of Exactitude.

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

Attention Is The Beginning Of Devotion.

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

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.

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

My Work Is Loving The World.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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

Beauty Of The World

You Must Not Ever Stop Being Whimsical.

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Daniel D. Palmer

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