Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

by Mary Oliver

But just now it is summer again and I am watching the lilies bow to each other,

Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over he gets to ask it. I get to tell.

Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds think it is all their own music?

How strong was her dark body! How apt is her grave place. How beautiful is her unshakable sleep.

But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be if it isn’t a prayer? So I just listened,

We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left.

And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything? And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for? And have you changed your life?

And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper: oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two beautiful bodies of your lungs.

Look, and look again. This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes. It’s more than bones. It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse. It’s more than the beating of the single heart. It’s praising. It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving. You have a life—just imagine that! You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another.

And consider, always, every day, the determination of the grass to grow despite the unending obstacles.

through such a thin door— one stab, and you’re through! And what then? Why, then it was almost morning, and one by one the birds opened their wings and flew.

on the pale dunes, above the cricket’s humble nest, under the blue sky that loves us all.

And the fireflies, blinking their little lights, hurry toward one another. And the world continues, God willing.

Maybe I will, someday, somewhere. Maybe I won’t. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that, when I saw them, I saw them as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.

But here’s the kingdom we call remembrance with its thousand iron doors through which I pass so easily,

it will always remain a mystery you have to go home now and live with, sometimes with the ease of music, and sometimes in silence, for the rest of your life.

Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no. Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also, like the diligent leaves.

The golden eagle, that lives not far from here, has perhaps a thousand tiny feathers flowing from the back of its head, each one shaped like an infinitely small but perfect spear.

so I thought: maybe death isn’t darkness, after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us— as soft as feathers— that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking, and shut our eyes,

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.

and only now, deep into night, it has finally ended. The silence is immense, and the heavens still hold a million candles;