Today I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word.
I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.
The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.
But I’m taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.
Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.
Gif Source: (via Your Eyes Blaze Out).
Live & Learn 
❤
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I was getting ready to leave for work when I heard the news yesterday. It didn’t make a sound, her passing away. It was very silent.
I read somewhere last night that her favorite companions on her long nature walks were the dead poets.
It was beautiful to live in a world she’s living in too.
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“MARTIN: Has your work become more prayerful, more spiritual over the years?
OLIVER: I would say yes. Maybe a little bit of that is that the two things I loved from a very early age were the natural world and dead poets, which were my pals when I was a kid.”
https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=162785079
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MARTIN: Because you write about the natural world and because you write these beautiful meditations about your natural surroundings, as so many others have done, how do you find new words to describe what you see?
OLIVER: I suppose by paying very close, close, close attention to things and seeing new details. I love words. I love the mechanics of poetry. I often speak of the choreography of the poem on the page. And to find a new word that is accurate and different, you have to be alert for it. It’s wonderful. It’s fun. But one thing I do know is that a poetry to be understand must be clear. It mustn’t be fancy. I have the feeling that a lot of poets writing now are – they sort of tap dance through it. I always feel that whatever isn’t necessary should not be in the poem.
https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=162785079
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OLIVER: I think it began with discipline, because I did understand that any artistic venture requires a lot of discipline. But it’s no longer a discipline, it’s no longer something I think about. I’m often up – on most mornings – I’m up to see the sun. And that rising of the light moves me very much. And I’m used to thinking and feeling in words, so it sort of just happens.
MARTIN: Have you always done that? Have you always written in the mornings?
OLIVER: Yes, yes. I like the mornings. I like to give the mornings to those first good thoughts. And I suppose in a way it sets up the day.
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Oh, How desperately we need a voice who draws our eye to the beauty in this world….I am going to miss her.
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Yes…draws us to beauty…and away from the darkness that seems to pervade from all points….
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Had to wait to see something (again) through my tears. I am too far away to say I knew much about Mary Oliver but the little I knew was SO GREAT. A tremendous loss to all with a feeling heart and soul.
The GIF matches the mood – moving away to disappear from our vision –
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Yes Kiki. Me too….
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She may be gone in body but her spirit lives on in the words she left behind.
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sure will…
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If I were to invent a religion, its bible would be Mary Oliver’s poetry. Her work is a center post of my spirituality. “…this decision, this trailing of the long legs in the water, this opening up of the heavy body, into a new life: see how the sudden gray-blue sheets of her wings strive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing takes her in.”
Heron Rises From The Dark, Summer Pond
by Mary Oliver
So heavy
is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,
always it is a surprise
when her smoke-colored wings
open
and she turns
from the thick water,
from the black sticks
of the summer pond,
and slowly
rises into the air
and is gone.
Then, not for the first or the last time,
I take the deep breath
of happiness, and I think
how unlikely it is
that death is a hole in the ground,
how improbable
that ascension is not possible,
though everything seems so inert, so nailed
back into itself–
the muskrat and his lumpy lodge,
the turtle,
the fallen gate.
And especially it is wonderful
that the summers are long
and the ponds so dark and so many,
and therefore it isn’t a miracle
but the common thing,
this decision,
this trailing of the long legs in the water,
this opening up of the heavy body
into a new life: see how the sudden
gray-blue sheets of her wings
strive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing
takes her in.
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Beautiful Elizabeth. Me too. Thank you for sharing.
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How marvelous (a marvel to us) to give us that gif of the owl! There she goes…, where…? someplace wonderful. I’m delighted that so many friends and groups I’m a part of all appreciate Mary Oliver…so she is still with us through her love of the natural world and divine gift with words…
how do you find new words to describe what you see?
OLIVER: I suppose by paying very close, close, close attention to things and seeing new details. I love words. I love the mechanics of poetry. I often speak of the choreography of the poem on the page. And to find a new word that is accurate and different, you have to be alert for it. It’s wonderful. It’s fun. But one thing I do know is that a poetry to be understand must be clear. It mustn’t be fancy. I have the feeling that a lot of poets writing now are – they sort of tap dance through it. I always feel that whatever isn’t necessary should not be in the poem.
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Love that Valerie. Thanks so much for sharing.
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She was prolly my favorite contemporary poet. It comes too soon on the tail of my other favorite, Tony Hoagland.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I did this last year, trying out Olivers wonderful form.
https://srevestories.blogspot.com/2018/08/acceptance.html
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Love Tony Hoagland Steve. Thanks.
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Thank you for sharing, David. Her light and beautiful words will be missed.
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Thanks Pat. I agree.
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Her words live on…. and so it becomes time to appreciate them even more 💕
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So true Val…
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Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
Amazing flight … ‘Mary Oliver, “Today” in A Thousand Mornings: Poems’
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Beautiful post David. And the comments feel like a memorial to Mary Oliver. How fitting! I am so thankful her words are out there for us to experience, forever a reminder of one great soul.
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Thank you Ilona. And I agree, her words will live on.
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