West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems

by Mary Oliver

Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from one boot to another—why don’t you get going?

And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money, I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.

Have I not thought, for years, what it would be worthy to do, and then gone off, barefoot and with a silver pail, to gather blueberries, thus coming, as I think, upon a right answer? What will ambition do for me that the fox, appearing suddenly at the top of the field, her eyes sharp and confident as she stared into mine, has not already done?

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.

Have I not loved as though the beloved could vanish at any moment, or become preoccupied, or whisper a name other than mine

Have I ever taken good fortune for granted?

And, while I waited, have I not leaned close, to see everything?

Have I not been ready always at the iron door, not knowing to what country it opens—to death or to more life?

how I meant to live a quiet life how I meant to live a life of mildness and meditation tapping the careful words against each other

How can I hope to be friends with the hard white stars whose flaring and hissing are not speech but a pure radiance? How can I hope to be friends with the yawning spaces between them where nothing, ever, is spoken? Tonight, at the edge of the field, I stood very still, and looked up, and tried to be empty of words. What joy was it, that almost found me? What amiable peace?

What can we do but keep on breathing in and out, modest and willing, and in our places?

And have you made inquiry yet as to what the poetry of this world is about? For what purpose do we seek it, and ponder it, and give it such value? And also this is true—that if I consider the golden whistler and the song that pours from his narrow throat in the context of evolution, of reptiles, of Cambrian waters, of the body’s wish to change, of the body’s incredible crafts and efforts, of life’s multitudes, of the winners and the losers, I lose nothing of the original occasion, and its infinite sweetness. For this is my skill—I am capable of pondering the most detailed knowledge, and the most fastened-up, impenetrable mystery, at the same time.

Language is, in other words, not necessary, but voluntary. If it were necessary, it would have stayed simple; it would not agitate our hearts with ever-present loveliness and ever-cresting ambiguity; it would not dream, on its long white bones, of turning into song.

I believe in death. I believe it is the last wonderful work.

and if you think thinking is a mild exercise, beware!

If you think daylight is just daylight then it is just daylight.

Of course the mind keeps cool in its hidden palace—yes, the mind takes a long time, is otherwise occupied than by happiness, and deep breathing.

There are days when I rise from my desk desolate. There are days when the field water and the slender grasses and the wild hawks have it all over the rest of us whether or not they make clear sense, ride the beautiful long spine of grammar, whether or not they rhyme.

Two little stones,

Whats with the two stones reference? In everything everywhere all at once there was a scene with two stones too. Seems like a common existential reference

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.