All I can tell you is what I know.
Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.
It’s more than bones.
It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It’s more than the beating of the single heart.
It’s praising.
It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life – just imagine that
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe
still another.
– Mary Oliver, from “To Begin With, the Sweet Grass” in Evidence: Poems
Notes:
- Poem – Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels. Art print: Heart of Aspens by Michael Zheng
- Post title Inspired by Albert Einstein’s quote: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Live & Learn 
yes, each day we wake up we are lucky
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Yes we do.
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Ah, Mary Oliver…preach
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Exactly.
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Miracle, all of Her.
The fact that one can read 2 lines into anything she wrote and know, “This has to be Oliver.” Because the universe only speaks like this through her.
And still have something new to say each time.
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Yes. Exactly.
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I was thinking that exact same thing, Sawsan! And I’m “new” to her…
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I’m fairly new to her too.
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Better late than never, I say.
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My first Mary Oliver was,
“You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life
toward it.”
From Ten Poems to Open Your Heart, By Roger Housden.
She opened my heart.
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Love this.
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Oh wow… Thank you, Sawsan
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Sawsan, I thought the same…. already quite a few times! And I’m new to her too – all thanks to our shared fondness for a certain DK, I guess! Hi girls!!!!
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Sawsan hit it precisely…Mary’s voice is singular and so very good. Thank you for starting my Sunday with this benediction, pal…
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She did. You too Lori.
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Lori, couldn’t agree more. She REALLY was a discovery for me – and is – with every new work of art I read and discover.
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Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
POEM … so much more!! … ‘You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another.’ Mary Oliver, from “To Begin With, the Sweet Grass” in Evidence: Poems.
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Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry seem to me the literary contemporary Eve and Adam, they so naturally harbor God within their gifts. We are so fortunate to have had them enter our journey.
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Well said Carol!
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Gorgeous image to go with these perfect words for my Sunday (well, everyone’s Sunday…)
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It was. Thank you.
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For some reason I can’t think of a single thing to say
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And that’s Great Enough.
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Her poems and wisdom always move me! Love the picture too…
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Yes!
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Makes my Wednesday !!!! Boy, I AM behind….. if this was for Sunday.
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You are so so behind!
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Late, but present (sort of)
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Totally
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Wonderful!
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It is!
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