(no subject)
For some reason I was really into the idea of posting a poem or two here for v-day, but as I was looking through my collection I just got caught up in reading my favorite Mary Oliver poems. These are from a sequence of thirteen poems found in West Wind .
And the speck of my heart, in my shed of flesh
and bone, began to sing out, the way the sun
would sing if the sun could sing, if light had a
mouth and a tongue, if the sky had a throat, if
god wasn't just an idea but shoulders and a spine,
gathered from everywhere, even the most distant
planets, blazing up. Where am I? Even the rough
words come to me now, quick as thistles. Who
made your tyrant's body, your thirst, your delv-
ing, your gladness? Oh Tiger, oh bone-breaker,
oh tree on fire! Get away from me. Come closer.
and from the same sequence:
And what did you think love would be like?
A summer day? The brambles in their places,
and the long stretches of mud? Flowers in every
field, in every garden, with their soft beaks and
their pastel shoulders? On one street after an-
other, the litter ticks in the gutter. In one room
after another, the lovers meet, quarrel, sicken,
break apart, cry out. One or two leap from
windows. Most simply lean, exhausted, their
thin arms on the sill. They have done all that
they could. The golden eagle, that lives not far
from here, has perhaps a thousand tiny feathers
flowing from the back of its head, each one
shaped like an infinitely small but perfect sphere.
And the speck of my heart, in my shed of flesh
and bone, began to sing out, the way the sun
would sing if the sun could sing, if light had a
mouth and a tongue, if the sky had a throat, if
god wasn't just an idea but shoulders and a spine,
gathered from everywhere, even the most distant
planets, blazing up. Where am I? Even the rough
words come to me now, quick as thistles. Who
made your tyrant's body, your thirst, your delv-
ing, your gladness? Oh Tiger, oh bone-breaker,
oh tree on fire! Get away from me. Come closer.
and from the same sequence:
And what did you think love would be like?
A summer day? The brambles in their places,
and the long stretches of mud? Flowers in every
field, in every garden, with their soft beaks and
their pastel shoulders? On one street after an-
other, the litter ticks in the gutter. In one room
after another, the lovers meet, quarrel, sicken,
break apart, cry out. One or two leap from
windows. Most simply lean, exhausted, their
thin arms on the sill. They have done all that
they could. The golden eagle, that lives not far
from here, has perhaps a thousand tiny feathers
flowing from the back of its head, each one
shaped like an infinitely small but perfect sphere.