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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.

-Mary Oliver

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Sunrise What Is The

Mary Oliver

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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.

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

Adjectives And Adverbs

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

I Know Many Lives Worth Living.

Life Worth Living

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

All Eternity Is In The Moment.

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.

Keep Some Room In Your Heart For The Unimaginable.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Afraid Of Death

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.

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

Look For Verbs Of Muscle, Adjectives Of Exactitude.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

Listen--are You Breathing Just A Little, And Calling It A Life?

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

Attention Is The Beginning Of Devotion.

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

In My Own Work, I Usually Revise Through Forty Or Fifty Drafts Of A Poem Before I Begin To Feel Content With It.

The Language Of The Poem Is The Language Of Particulars.

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.

Along With The Differences That Abide In Each Of Us, There Is Also In Each Of Us A Maverick, The Darling Stubborn One Who Won't Listen, Who Insists, Who Chooses Preference Or The Spirited Guess Over Yardsticks Or Even History. I Suspect This Maverick Is Somewhat What The Soul Is, Or At Least That The Soul Lives Close By And Companionably With Its Agitating And Inquiring Force.

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

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

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.

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

I Took One Look And Fell, Hook And Tumble.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Special Education

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Because Of The Dog's Joyfulness, Our Own Is Increased. It Is No Small Gift. It Is Not The Least Reason Why We Should Honor As Well As Love The Dog Of Our Own Life, And The Dog Down The Street, And All The Dogs Not Yet Born. What Would The World Be Like Without Music Or Rivers Or The Green And Tender Grass? What Would This World Be Like Without Dogs?

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

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

My Work Is Loving The World.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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"]

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

...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.

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

He Is Exactly The Poem I Wanted To Write.

You Must Not Ever Stop Being Whimsical.

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

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.

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

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

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.

And I Say To My Heart: Rave On.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Attention Without Feeling Is Only A Report.

Look, I Want To Love This World As Though It's The Last Chance I'm Ever Going To Get To Be Alive And Know It.

I Simply Do Not Distinguish Between Work And Play.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Every Word Is A Messenger. Some Have Wings; Some Are Filled With Fire; Some Are Filled With Death.

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

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.

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

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

How Precious Life Is

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

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

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.

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

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