Why I Wake Early

by Mary Oliver

So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing. So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too, and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones, so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being locked up in gold.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking outward, to the mountains so solidly there in a white-capped ring, or was he looking to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea that was also there, beautiful as a thumb curved and touching the finger, tenderly, little love-ring, as he whirled, oh jug of breath, in the garden of dust?

what is left rides to shore, one more sweet-as-honey answer for the wanderer whose tongue is agile, whose mind, in the world’s riotous plenty, wants syntax, connections, lists, and most of all names to set beside the multitudinous stars, flowers, sea creatures, rocks, trees.

The Old Poets of China Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it. Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far and high into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.