Mary Oliver

As a gift to each other Michael and I started a day at sunrise reading from Mary Oliver’s Pulitzer Prize winning book of poems, A Thousand Mornings. I cannot recommend her poetry enough. As a writer in her 80's now, Oliver is full of wonder and praise. Her faith sings through clear observations of the natural world. In her poems she climbs trees, runs across fields, stands at the oceans edge, listens to the songs of reptiles and traces the flight of birds.

We ended the evening rereading each poem back to each other. It was such a gift of the day! 

Here are two of my favorites:

POEM of 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.

ON TRAVELING TO BEAUTIFUL PLACES

Every day I’m still looking for God

And I’m still finding him everywhere,

In the dust, in the flowerbeds.

Certainly in the oceans,

In the islands that lay in the distance

Continents of ice, countries of sand

Each with its own set of creatures

And God, by whatever name.

How perfect to be aboard a ship with

Maybe a hundred years still in my pocket.

But it’s late for us,

And in truth the only ship there is

Is the ship we are all on

Burning the world as we go.