Why I Wake Early

by Mary Oliver

lest we would sift it down into fractions, and facts— certainties— and what the soul is, also I believe I will never quite know. Though I play at the edges of knowing, truly I know our part is not knowing,

Fifteen minutes of music with nothing playing.

thinking: maybe something will come, some shining coil of wind, or a few leaves from any old tree— they are all in this too. And now I will tell you the truth. Everything in the world comes. At least, closer.

she came swinging into the woods, truant from everything as usual except the clear globe of the day, and its beautiful details.

It’s like a schoolhouse of little words, thousands of words. First you figure out what each one means by itself, the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop full of moonlight. Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last! What a task to ask of anything, or anyone, yet it is ours, and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.

held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us

everything that needs to be done is done.

Every day I see or I hear something that more or less kills me with delight,

Let us hope it will always be like this, each of us going on in our inexplicable ways building the universe.

Through the window we could see how far away it was to the gates of April. Let the fire now put on its red hat and sing to us.

It is possible, I suppose, that sometime we will learn everything there is to learn:

you stare down into it, and there you are, your own darling face, your own eyes. And then the wind, not thinking of you, just passes by,

I spoke there, briefly, of the loved one gone. I gazed at the people in the pews, some of them weeping. I knew I must, someday, write this down.