All Poems
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Beyond the Snow Belt
© Mary Oliver
And what else might we do? Les us be truthful.
Two counties north the storm has taken lives.
Two counties north, to us, is far away, -
A land of trees, a wing upon a map,
A wild place never visited, - so we
Forget with ease each far mortality.
Turtle
© Mary Oliver
Now I see it--
it nudges with its bulldog head
the slippery stems of the lilies, making them tremble;
and now it noses along in the wake of the little brown teal
Fall Song
© Mary Oliver
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering backfrom the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhereexcept underfoot, moldering
August
© Mary Oliver
When the blackberries hang
swollen in the woods, in the brambles
nobody owns, I spend
Peonies
© Mary Oliver
This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers
Egrets
© Mary Oliver
Where the path closed
down and over,
through the scumbled leaves,
fallen branches,
After Arguing Against The Contention That Art Must Come From Discontent
© Mary Oliver
Whispering to each handhold, "I'll be back,"
I go up the cliff in the dark. One place
I loosen a rock and listen a long time
till it hits, faint in the gulf, but the rush
An Afternoon In The Stacks
© Mary Oliver
Closing the book, I find I have left my head
inside. It is dark in here, but the chapters open
their beautiful spaces and give a rustling sound,
words adjusting themselves to their meaning.
Yes! No!
© Mary Oliver
How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the spotted trout
lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the earth. I
think serenity is not something you just find in the world,
like a plum tree, holding up its white petals.
The Buddha's Last Instruction
© Mary Oliver
"Make of yourself a light"
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
Some Things The World Gave
© Mary Oliver
1
Times in the morning early
when it rained and the long gray
buildings came forward from darkness
offering their windows for light.
Sleeping In The Forest
© Mary Oliver
I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
At Great Pond
© Mary Oliver
At Great Pond
the sun, rising,
scrapes his orange breast
on the thick pines,
Black Oaks
© Mary Oliver
Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays
carp and whistle all day in the branches, without
the push of the wind.
Flare
© Mary Oliver
It is not the sunrise,
which is a red rinse,
which is flaring all over the eastern sky;
