Monday, January 21, 2019

The Beauty of This World



Dear Mary Oliver,

I read you to him
as he drove us up-Island.
He listened, he smiled.
He was a hello, and so soon a goodbye.
When I got home, I read some more,
pausing when you wrote, of your parents:
"May they sleep well. May they soften."
Life is a long list of letting go's.

You wrote:
"A lifetime isn't long enough
for the beauties of this world."
It's true:
all those years spent earning a living,
instead of joyously living a life.
"And I am thinking: maybe just
looking and listening 
is the real work."
I look, now.
I listen well.

I am a poet, reading a Master, and you tell me:
"....the poem....wants to open itself
like the little door of a temple."
You say: "It may be the rock in the field
is also a song" and I know this,
for I have heard it, singing songs
of centuries ago.
You say: "Maybe the world, without us,
is the real poem."

I was a woman of sixty, when I read:
"I am a woman of sixty, of no special courage",
and my last love had been and gone.
I and my black wolf were in love with the wild
and it - and we - were enough.

I read your book to the living,
and I read your book
to the dying woman in a coma,
to whom I wanted to give a gift.
I felt the energy in the room change,
as the gift was received,
and walked outside into a rainbow.
And all of it -
the dying woman, your words,
the sky, my heart -
was enough and more than enough.

You said:
"Remember me......I am the one who told you
that the grass is also alive,
and listening."

I close the book in gratitude
for the words that help me
better love this world.


A poem from one year ago, re-posted in honour of my favourite poet, Mary Oliver. The quotes are from her The Leaf and the Cloud, a slim, book-length poem that is truly amazing, so full of life and death and all of its beauties. I may share this with the Tuesday Platform at Real Toads on Tuesday. 


14 comments:

  1. oh what a beautiful ode to Mary Oliver and what a great lines They are all gold

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  2. What a beautiful heart wrenching tribute Sherry.

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  3. I love the way you have layered this with memories dialogue and quotes... a rich reading

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  4. As with this, poetry demands to be read aloud.

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  5. An amazing tribute stunning in its dialogue and wisdom. This bit with stay with me Sherry; "Life is a long list of letting go's." Sigh..❤️

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  6. I love how her words became part of your story, and you let us feel how her words caressed your life, while offering beautiful words of your own.

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  7. Beautiful. I love the way you inserted her lines and meshed them with your own life. and Pup is always there.

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  8. Tonight, we are gathering for a Mary Oliver night, to share our favourites of her poems. I may read this one........her work has been so significant in my life.

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  9. Just the right quotes for you to use telling your story. Gives me goosebumps while reading. I hope someone reads her poems, and yours, to me when my time comes. I should prepare a script for that? I'm counting down now. (A semi-annual checkup with my cardiologist and his folks said I'm ticking along fine.)
    ..

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  10. A beautiful tribute, Sherry! I love how you quoted her words here and complimented them with your own verse.

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  11. What I loved about this poem that it told so much about you as of who you were writing about. This is one of my favorites of yours...of the large number!

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  12. I can't believe I've yet to read The Leaf and the Cloud. I want to be touched like this. I want to be reminded...

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  13. Thank you for this beautiful gift, Sherry. In your poem, you offer a bouquet of carefully selected lines from Mary Oliver, enhanced with fresh greenery that you pull from your love and respect of living and letting go. Such a thought-provoking, heart-felt bouquet! - Jan McD.

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