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...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.

-Mary Oliver

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...there Was A New

Mary Oliver

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...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.

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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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Look For Verbs Of Muscle, Adjectives Of Exactitude.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Be Good-natured And Untidy In Your Exuberance.

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

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

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?

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

All Eternity Is In The Moment.

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

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

Poetry Is A Life-cherishing Force.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

I Believe In Kindness. Also In Mischief.

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The Language Of The Poem Is The Language Of Particulars.

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"]

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

I Simply Do Not Distinguish Between Work And Play.

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

Let Me Keep My Distance, Always, From Those Who Think They Have The Answers. Let Me Keep Company Always With Those Who Say “look!” And Laugh In Astonishment, And Bow Their Heads. (from “mysteries, Yes”)

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.

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

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

He Is Exactly The Poem I Wanted To Write.

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

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

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

Attention Without Feeling Is Only A Report.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

...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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Special Education

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

You Must Not Ever Stop Being Whimsical.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Do You Cherish Your Humble And Silky Life?

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Afraid Of Death

My Work Is Loving The World.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Attention Is The Beginning Of Devotion.

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.

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

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.

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.

I Took One Look And Fell, Hook And Tumble.

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.

And I Say To My Heart: Rave On.

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

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

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

Special Education

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

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

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 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.

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

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

Adjectives And Adverbs

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

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

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Keep Some Room In Your Heart For The Unimaginable.

I Know Many Lives Worth Living.

Life Worth Living

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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 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?

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

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

Beauty 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.

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

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?

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

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

...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.

Invention Hovers Always A Little Above The Rules.

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.

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

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