Tuesday, May 28, 2013

thirst




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Another morning and I wake with thirst
for the goodness I do not have. 
I walk out to the pond and all the way God  
has given us such beautiful lessons. 

Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but
sulked and hunched over my books past the
hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy,
a little more time. 

Love for the earth and love for you are having
such a long conversation in my heart. 

Who knows what will finally happen or where
I will be sent, yet already I have given a great
many things away, expecting to be told to pack
nothing, except the prayers which, with this
thirst, I am slowly learning.


–Mary Oliver





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image via in love i persevere




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Sunday, May 19, 2013

In Blackwater Woods




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Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.


–Mary Oliver





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Tuesday, May 14, 2013

heavy




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That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God 
had His hand in this,

as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter, 
as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel
(brave even among lions),
"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it-
books, bricks, grief-
it's all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,
put it down."
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?

Have you heard 
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?

How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe

also troubled-
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?


–Mary Oliver





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