Felicity

by Mary Oliver

“Wild roses,” I said to them one morning. “Do you have the answers? And if you do, would you tell me?” The roses laughed softly. “Forgive us,” they said. “But as you can see, we are just now entirely busy being roses.”

There is nothing more pathetic than caution when headlong might save a life, even, possibly, your own.

God, or the gods, are invisible, quite understandable. But holiness is visible, entirely. •

All important ideas must include the trees, the mountains, and the rivers. • To understand many things you must reach out of your own condition. • For how many years did I wander slowly through the forest. What wonder and glory I would have missed had I ever been in a hurry! • Beauty can both shout and whisper, and still it explains nothing. • The point is, you’re you, and that’s for keeps.

Why do people keep asking to see God’s identity papers when the darkness opening into morning is more than enough?

Whistling Swans Do you bow your head when you pray or do you look up into that blue space? Take your choice, prayers fly from all directions. And don’t worry about what language you use, God no doubt understands them all. Even when the swans are flying north and making such a ruckus of noise, God is surely listening and understanding. Rumi said, There is no proof of the soul. But isn’t the return of spring and how it springs up in our hearts a pretty good hint? Yes, I know, God’s silence never breaks, but is that really a problem? There are thousands of voices, after all. And furthermore, don’t you imagine (I just suggest it) that the swans know about as much as we do about the whole business? So listen to them and watch them, singing as they fly. Take from it what you can.

Except for the Body Except for the body of someone you love, including all its expressions in privacy and in public, trees, I think, are the most beautiful forms on the earth. Though, admittedly, if this were a contest, the trees would come in an extremely distant second.

I Don’t Want to Lose I don’t want to lose a single thread from the intricate brocade of this happiness. I want to remember everything. Which is why I’m lying awake, sleepy but not sleepy enough to give it up. Just now, a moment from years ago: the early morning light, the deft, sweet gesture of your hand reaching for me.

Be still, my soul, and steadfast.