“For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.”
Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook
In the wake of my mother's death, a dear friend sent me poetry. Two of Mary Oliver's books of poetry and they have proven to be just what she hoped - companions when the world makes little sense; and all of the things that Mary says so well herself here.
I feel this way about books as well - that they are not really simply words; but things set out to rescue us, to warm us and to feed us.
There is no doubt that poetry offers solace. There is something in the rhythms of it; the oftentimes concise nature of it, that enables even the most bewildered of brains to grasp onto the meaning of it and be moved.
Sometimes when the world seems too immense, too large to handle, to manage, to engage with - poetry can bring it back to scale, to here, to now and to what we can make tiny sense of.
With thanks for friends, for poetry and for books.
One of the gift books. And one of the poems from the book:
Poem of the One World
This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water
and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to
where everything
sooner or later
is part of everything else
which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful myself.
Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook
In the wake of my mother's death, a dear friend sent me poetry. Two of Mary Oliver's books of poetry and they have proven to be just what she hoped - companions when the world makes little sense; and all of the things that Mary says so well herself here.
I feel this way about books as well - that they are not really simply words; but things set out to rescue us, to warm us and to feed us.
There is no doubt that poetry offers solace. There is something in the rhythms of it; the oftentimes concise nature of it, that enables even the most bewildered of brains to grasp onto the meaning of it and be moved.
Sometimes when the world seems too immense, too large to handle, to manage, to engage with - poetry can bring it back to scale, to here, to now and to what we can make tiny sense of.
With thanks for friends, for poetry and for books.
One of the gift books. And one of the poems from the book:
Poem of the One World
This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water
and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to
where everything
sooner or later
is part of everything else
which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful myself.
Mary Oliver makes such beautiful sense of the world by paying attention deeply into perfect words
ReplyDeleteYou put it beautifully Mo - I am grateful that she has been on this earth and has written so much, so beautifully, and so easily for the likes,of me to find my way through...
DeleteAnother beautiful example of the clarity and depth of Mary Oliver's poetry. What special gifts to offer when needed most.
ReplyDeleteShe is truly remarkable Lesley - a gift to us all.
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