West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems

by Mary Oliver

Seven white butterflies delicate in a hurry look

im not cool enough to knowhow to read enjambed lines

all eternity is in the moment

seven dancers floating even as worms toward paradise

see how they banter and riot and rise

who would have thought it could be so easy?

(beauty) (life)

make your little appearance now

bird bird

bird bird

how everything trembles then settles from mere incidence into the lush of meaning.

i feel like this is smth ethel cain would like and no i wont explain further

after a while I’m pale with longing

Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a little sunshine, a little rain.

there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.

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.

mary oliver you are a star

surging forward with a sweet loopy music and therefore I don’t want to entangle it with my own voice

look the sunlight and the shadows are chasing each other

to come back to walk by my side, obedient.

why try to curb nature? why try to tame it?

once I was twenty years old and in every motion of my body there was a delicious ease,

in every motion of the green earth there was a hint of paradise,

the soul flashes like a star

a love knot out of control as they plunged through the air pressed against each other

he opened his hands to the world.

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?

have you made inquiry yet as to what the poetry of this world is about?

I lose nothing of the original occasion, and its infinite sweetness.

(its all honey)

it would not agitate our hearts with ever-present loveliness and ever-cresting ambiguity;

hate that im reading this at 2am and am being interrupted by thoughts of my favorite ex like why does this line apply to the woes of my heart

as for eternity, what’s that but the collation of all the hours we have known of sweetness and urgency?

How the sky flares and grows brighter, all the time! How time extends!

nobody can prove it but any fool can feel it

(love)

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

real

light of the world, hold me.

as always I am stopped as the world comes back wet and beautiful

broken but burning, spat out its solid heart

replete and beautiful— that was all there was—

passion did it, called me forth, addled me, stripped me clean then covered me with the cloth of happiness—

the polish of the world changes everything,

all of it happening beyond all seeable proof, or hearable hum.

Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine. Let the wind turn in the trees, and the mystery hidden in dirt

look into their eyes bright as planets under the long lashes

here is such unforced love!

Here is the white and silky trumpet of nothing. Here is the beautiful Nothing, body of happy, meaningless fire, wildfire, shaking the heart.

Later, I will consider

what I have seen—

what it could signify—

what words of adoration I might

make of it,

lilies so peacefully, are breaking open again I am almost the lily—

If there is life after the earth-life, will you come with me? Even then? Since we’re bound to be something, why not together.

You are young. So you know everything.

the speck of my heart, in my shed of flesh and bone, began to sing out, the way the sun would sing

Get away from me. Come closer.