Mary Oliver

I've found a new poet that I think I want to start reading more of. Well actually, she's really not new, but only new to me. I love that feeling when you find a writer that you connect with almost immediately...like you have known the person for a long time and only now are beginning to talk about the things that matter. And when they speak (or when I read) my heart jumps because they say the things that I think in ways that I can't say or think. For me that has been Wendell Berry, Walter Brueggemann, Stanley Hauerwas, N.T. Wright, Annie Dillard, Madeline L'Engle...

and now, Mary Oliver...

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make 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.

Work, Sometimes

I was sad all day, and why not. There i was, books piled
on both sides of the table, paper stacked up, words
falling off my tongue.

The robins had been a long time singing, and now it
was beginning to rain.

What are we sure of? Happiness isn't a town on a map,
or and early arrival, or a job well done, but good work
ongoing. Which is not likely to be trifling around
with a poem.

Then it began raining hard, and the flowers in the yard
were full of lively fragrance.

You have had days like this, no doubt. And wasn't it
wonderful, finally, to leave the room? Ah, what a
moment!

As for myself, I swung the door open. And there was
the wordless, singing world. And I ran for my life.