Everything

another new favorite I discovered during my poetry reading marathon this week...

Everything

I want to make poems that say right out, plainly,
what I mean, that don't go looking for the
laces of elaboration, puffed sleeves. I want to
keep close and use often words like
heavy, heart, joy, soon, and to cherish
the question mark and her bold sister


the dash. I want to write with quiet hands. I
want to write while crossing the fields that are
fresh with daises and everlasting and the
ordinary grass. I want to make poems while thinking of
the bread of heaven and the
cup of astonishment; let them be


songs in which nothing is neglected,
not a hope, not a promise. I want to make poems
that look into the earth and the heavens
and see the unseeable. I want them to honor
both the heart of faith, and the light of the world;
the gladness that says, without any words, everything.


~ Mary Oliver ~

(New and Selected Poems Volume Two)



Comments

  1. I *love* the window!

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  2. Beautiful photo and poem. You know I like Mary O!

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  3. This was emotional to get through. It is what I want - but don't. It's like having to give up on youth and look forward to the finite short years left. There is no more time to do all the things once hoped.

    It is joy in the stillness. It is what I long for, but can't quite give up the passion for all the "ways" I think it takes to get there.

    Of course I know His ways are higher than our "ways" and peace is surrounding me if I allow it.

    Life is a pull tho, with all its demands and responsibilities and regrets. Hard to get past that sometimes, alot of times, mostly all the time.

    Except here. For a moment. I was strengthened by getting past the struggle to read some difficult lines, somehow knowing this would happen - Reflection.

    Ever reflecting on what won't be, but what is - and how it can be exquisite.

    Thank you.

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