Tag: Mary Oliver

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them —

…But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided —
and that one wears an orange blight —
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away —
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled —
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing —
that the light is everything — that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

— Mary Oliver, from “The Ponds” in “House of Light” (Beacon Press, April 8, 1992)

Notes:

  • Photo: Orange Lily, DK, June 2020
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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The summer morning, its gentleness, the sense of great work being done through the grass where I stood scarcely trembled.

— Mary Oliver, from “The Perfect Day” in “Long Life: Essays & Other Writings“

Notes:

  • DK Photo from this morning @ 5:10 am. 69° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning here.
  • Quote Source: petaltexturedskies
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

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Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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I do not live happily or comfortably
with the cleverness of our times.
The talk is all about computers,
the news is all about bombs and blood.
This morning, in the fresh field,
I came upon a hidden nest.
It held four warm, speckled eggs.
I touched them.
Then went away softly,
having felt something more wonderful
Than all the electricity of New York City.

—  Mary Oliver, “With Thanks to the Field Sparrow, Whose Voice is So Delicate and Humble” in “Evidence: Poems”

Notes:

  • We’ll ignore the consequences of touching/picking up bird eggs from a nest… 🙂
  • Poem: Thank you Make Believe Boutique
  • Photo: Eva Bronzini via Pexels

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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Here is an amazement –– once I was twenty years old and in
every motion of my body there was a delicious ease,
and in every motion of the green earth there was
a hint of paradise,
and now I am sixty years old, and it is the same.

—  Mary Oliver, from “Am I Not Among The Early Risers” in West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems (Mariner Books, April 7, 1998)

Notes:

  • Image Credit. Andreas Kuehn.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

 

Nothing you ever understand will be sweeter, or more binding / Than this deepest affinity between your eyes and the world.

Live & Learn36 Comments

Notes:

  • Post Title: From Mary Oliver’s “Terns” (Thank you Make Believe Boutique)
  • DK Photos: 6:15 to 6:40. 60° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning here.