To the mountain of tributes to the great Mary Oliver, I add this little pebble.
In a world with so many hysterical people running loose, shouting and fighting and festering outrage, I miss her. Or I miss the idea of her, the poet walking along the shore in her barn jacket, quiet and alone, observing. This wise chronicler of grief and joy, confusion and discovery, this plain-dressing, plain-spoken witness to the extravagant beauty of the natural world, this translator of the unvoiced spiritual impulse, this New England gal, our very own American Rumi—is gone, alas. Fortunately her poems are here to stay. She’ll be read for ages.
The poem below is not one of her greatest hits, but I’ve been thinking about it since I came across it. Like so many of her poems, it’s planted a seed in my soul that has taken root.
This Morning
by Mary Oliver
This morning the redbirds’ eggs
have hatched and already the chicks
are chirping for food. They don’t
know where it’s coming from, they
just keep shouting, “More! More!”
As to anything else, they haven’t
had a single thought. Their eyes
haven’t yet opened, they know nothing
about the sky that’s waiting. Or
the thousands, the millions of trees.
They don’t even know they have wings.
And just like that, like a simple
neighborhood event, a miracle is
taking place.
*. *. *
Spend today—spend tomorrow, spend every day of the rest of your life for Pete’s sake—thinking about those little birds and what they don’t know. The trees that await. The wings waiting to be used. So much is beyond our perception. Again and again in her long career Oliver lifted the veil and gave us a glimpse of the trees, the sky, our wings.
R.I.P. Mary Oliver. With thanks from a grateful reader.
They don’t even know they have wings.
Thank you.
________________________ Julia Ralston http://www.JuliaRalston.com
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Julia, just linked over to your website and I’m bowled over. Your work is beautiful, I love it so much.
Thank you.
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Not a pebble, but a pearl of great truth, an act of fervent devotion. Your words and Mary’s words together were greatly consoling to read, Poem Elf.
Reblogged this on Andrea Skevington and commented:
Thank you Poem Elf for this tribute to a poet whose poems are “fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry”
Beautiful poem and love your comments too PE! So fitting!
A wonderful tribute. We are all little birds, not knowing what we do not know. There, too, Mary Oliver is ahead of us.