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

-Mary Oliver

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We Shake With Joy,

Mary Oliver

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

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

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.

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

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

Invention Hovers Always A Little Above The Rules.

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.

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

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

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

Special Education

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

I Know Many Lives Worth Living.

Life Worth Living

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The Sea Is The Most Beautiful Face In Our Universe.

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.

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.

Look For Verbs Of Muscle, Adjectives Of Exactitude.

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

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

I Took One Look And Fell, Hook And Tumble.

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

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

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

...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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

How Precious Life Is

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

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

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

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

He Is Exactly The Poem I Wanted To Write.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I 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?

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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

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

Be Good-natured And Untidy In Your Exuberance.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Music: What So Many Sentences Aspire To Be.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Simply Do Not Distinguish Between Work And Play.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Special Education

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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 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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Attention Without Feeling Is Only A Report.

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

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

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

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

All Eternity Is In The Moment.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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"]

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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”)

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

Adjectives And Adverbs

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.

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

Beauty Of The World

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Afraid Of Death

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.

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

Attention Is The Beginning Of Devotion.

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

The Language Of The Poem Is The Language Of Particulars.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Keep Some Room In Your Heart For The Unimaginable.

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