Poetry Chaikhana | Mary Oliver - Mindful

[bobby1933]

Mindful

by Mary Oliver

Every day
     I see or hear
          something
               that more or less

kills me
     with delight,
          that leaves me
               like a needle

in the haystack
     of light.
          It was what I was born for -
               to look, to listen,

to lose myself
     inside this soft world -
          to instruct myself

Comments

Hafiz is two of my favorite poets

[bobby1933]

I did not see the similarity to Hafiz (or to Daniel Ladinsky). To me Mary Oliver sounds a) like Mary Oliver and b) like all my favorite mystical poets. I notice first the unique qualities, then the universal one, and i hardly ever get around to sorting poets into categories. Of course, you can often tell by the content that one poet is Christian, another is a Sufi, and another is a shaman. Oliver probably gets labeled with that awful word "secular."

[bardcat]

Well, I believe in real life Mary Oliver leans Episcopalian and Christian and not secular, but, whoever or whatever she is, she's a hell of a poet.

[bobby1933]

"Secular mystical poet" seems to me an oxymoron from my understanding of "secular." Mary Oliver is also described as "eclectic" which is a favorite word to me. Its a way of trying to be "universal" if you don't know how (and i certainly don't know how.)