Mary Oliver (1935- )

ENGL 2030—Fall 2013 | Lavery

ENGL 2030—Fall 2013 | Lavery

Listen to an NPR Story on Mary Oliver

The Journey

One day you finally knewwhat you had to do, and began,though the voices around youkept shoutingtheir bad advice--though the whole housebegan to trembleand you felt the old tugat your ankles."Mend my life!"each voice cried.But you didn't stop.

ENGL 2030—Fall 2013 | Lavery

The Journey [continued]

You knew what you had to do,though the wind priedwith its stiff fingersat the very foundations,though their melancholywas terrible.It was already lateenough, and a wild night,and the road full of fallenbranches and stones.But little by little,as you left their voices behind,the stars began to burnthrough the sheets of clouds,.  ENGL 2030—Fall 2013 | Lavery

The Journey [continued]and there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own,that kept you companyas you strode deeper and deeperinto the world,determined to dothe only thing you could do--determined to savethe only life you could save. 

ENGL 2030—Fall 2013 | Lavery

Picking Blueberries, Austerlitz, New York,1957

Once, in summerin the blueberries, I fell asleep, and wokewhen a deer stumbled against me.

I guessshe was so busy with her own happinessshe had grown carelessand was just wandering along

listeningto the wind as she leaned downto lip up the sweetness.So, there we were

ENGL 2030—Fall 2013 | Lavery

Picking Blueberries, Austerlitz, New York,1957 [continued]with nothing between usbut a few leaves, and wind’sglossy voiceshouting instructions.

The deerbacked away finallyand flung up her white tailand went floating off toward the trees -

but the moment she did thatwas so wide and so deepit has lasted to this day; I have only to think of her –

ENGL 2030—Fall 2013 | Lavery

Picking Blueberries, Austerlitz, New York,1957 [continued]the flower of her amazementand the stalled breath of her curiosity, and even the damp touch of her solicitudebefore she took flight -

to be absent again from this worldand alive, again, in anotherfor thirty yearssleepy and amazed,

rising out of the rough weedslistening and looking.Beautiful girl, where are you?

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The Summer Day Who made the world?Who made the swan, and the black bear?Who made the grasshopper?This grasshopper, I mean--the one who has flung herself out of the grass,the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down,who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

ENGL 2030—Fall 2013 | Lavery

The Summer Day [continued] I don't know exactly what a prayer is.I do know how to pay attention, how to fall downinto 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 dowith your one wild and precious life?

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A Visitor

My father, for example, who was young onceand blue-eyed, returnson the darkest of nightsto the porch and knockswildly at the door, and if I answerI must be preparedfor his waxy face, for his lower lipswollen with bitterness. And so, for a long time, 

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A Visitor [continued]I did not answer, but slept fitfullybetween his hours of rapping. But finally there came the nightwhen I rose out of my sheetsand stumbled down the hall. The door fell open

and I knew I was saved and could bear him, pathetic and hollow, with even the least of his dreamsfrozen inside him, 

ENGL 2030—Fall 2013 | Lavery

A Visitor [continued]and the meanness gone. And I greeted him and asked himinto the house, and lit the lamp, and looked into his blank eyesin which at lastI saw what a child must love, I saw what love might have donehad we loved in time.

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Starlings in Winter

Chunky and noisy,but with stars in their black feathers, they spring from the telephone wireand instantly

they are acrobatsin the freezing wind.And now, in the theater of air,they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;they float like one stippled starthat opens,becomes for a moment fragmented,

Starling VideoHear Garrison Keillor read “Starlings in Winter” (@2 min 27 sec)

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Starlings in Winter [continued]then closes again;and you watchand you trybut you simply can't imagine

how they do itwith no articulated instruction, no pause,only the silent confirmationthat they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spinover and over again,full of gorgeous life.Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

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Starlings in Winter [continued]even in the leafless winter,even in the ashy city.I am thinking nowof grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots trying to leave the ground,I feel my heartpumping hard, I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.I want to be light and frolicsome.I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,as though I had wings.

ENGL 2030—Fall 2013 | Lavery

The Swan

Across the wide waterssomething comes

floating—a slimand delicate

ship, filledwith white flowers—

and it moveson its

miraculous muscles

as though time didn’t existas though bringing such gifts

to the dry shorewas a

happiness

The Swan

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The Swan [continued] almost beyond bearing.

And now it turns its dark eyes,it rearranges

the clouds of its wings,

it trailsan elaborate webbed foot,

the color of charcoal.Soon it will be

here.

Oh, what shall I dowhen the poppy-colored beak

rests in my hand?Said Mrs. Blake

of the poet ENGL 2030—Fall 2013 | Lavery

Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”

The Swan [continued] I miss my husband’s company—

he is so oftenin paradise.

Of course! The path to heaven

doesn’t lie down in flat miles.It’s in the imagination

with which you perceivethis world,

and the gestureswith which you honor it.

Oh, what will I do, what will I say, whenthose

white wingstouch the shore?

ENGL 2030—Fall 2013 |

Lavery

From “When Death Comes”

When it’s over, I want to say: all my lifeI was a bride married to amazement.I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonderif 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.

ENGL 2030—Fall 2013 | Lavery