Here's another poem by my favorite poet Mary Oliver. I don't know about you, but I can live so much of my life in my head, with so many conflicting voices. None of the voices are not mine, and yet none of the voices is pure. That's what I like about Oliver. She's right there in the midst of the struggle. She's not writing after she's got it all figured out, kicking back on her sofa saying, "Whew! I'm glad life isn't so difficult anymore now that I've beat the system, solved the puzzle, found my one clear voice (the voice of God?)." She's not the saint who used to be the sinner, the one who, now that she's beyond doubt or struggle, can finally make art. She's right there right now making beautiful art, right in the muck and messiness. Saintliness and Beauty are not things that come after the struggle, after all the questions have been answered and doubts assuaged. Now is Beauty. The Beauty of God is at hand. That is good news.
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
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1 comment:
I LOVE Mary Oliver! This is my favorite (so far):
The Summer Day
Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
from New and Selected Poems, 1992
Beacon Press, Boston, MA
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