Poems 2006-2009 by Mary Oliver

Source of book: I own this

 

This is part of my systematic read-through of Devotions, my Mary Oliver anthology. As I have been doing with much of my poetry collection, I decided to read a portion of this book, representing the four collections Oliver released in between 2006 and 2009. (The book is in reverse chronological order.) The collections are Evidence (2009), The Truro Bear and Other Adventures (2008), Red Bird (2008), and Thirst (2009). 

 

I previously wrote about Oliver’s last collections in this post. I also wrote a bit about her life and style there, so I won’t repeat it. 

 

As with the other poems, I found a lot to like. My love of nature and the embrace of a loving Divine rather than the psychopathic view of God I was raised with means I have a lot in common with Oliver. 

 

It really struck me while reading this collection just how much Oliver retained the language and perspective of a faith that rejected her for who she was. Like me, another outcast from what passes for “christianity” in this country, she remained fascinated by the beauty of the faith, while rejecting both the ugly parts and the uglier inventions of later theologians. 

 

I also loved the way that she so easily speaks in the language of biblical metaphor. For so many of us, this was the mythology we were raised in, the old stories and parables, the way myth was used to illustrate timeless truth. (Literalism is a relatively modern hermeneutic - created in response to Enlightenment scientific thought and rationalism…) 

 

For Oliver, a lesbian who chose a lifelong loving relationship with her partner over theology, God was something rather separate from the institutions that claim to speak for the Divine. And I very much agree with that. Oliver, like William James, also saw a hard line between God and Nature to be fundamentally illogical and untenable. If creator and creation are entirely separate, then they can never commune, which seems to Oliver, James, and myself, as a barrier to even the idea of a relationship with the Divine. 

 

With the usual caveat that I could have chosen any of the poems to feature, here are the ones that I chose. 

 

First, this short gem from Evidence. 

 

We Shake With Joy

 

We shake with joy, we shake with grief.

What a time they have, these two

housed as they are in the same body.

 

There are several of these poems that are almost like proverbs, aphorisms, sayings. In that, they are very much of the Hebrew Scripture tradition. I have never believed that God stopped speaking to us once the Bible was selected 1700 years ago. Every generation hears the call, and our understanding of the Divine changes as our knowledge changes. Oliver is one of our modern prophets (see below), in my opinion. 

 

Next up is a selection from the multi-part longer poem, To Begin With, The Sweet Grass. If any poem tells the journey of deconstruction by telling it “slant,” this is it. 

 

7.

What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.

Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.

That was many years ago.

Since then I have gone out from my confinements,

            though with difficulty.

 

I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.

I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile.

They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment

            somehow or another.)

 

And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.

I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.

I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,

I have become younger.

 

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?

Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world. 

 

It really is scary, now that I have left Evangelicalism and become estranged from my parents, just how central to both faith and family was the idea that they had the right to rule my heart. And, now that I have left, I have been free to embrace those I was taught were the enemy: LGBTQ people, liberals, atheists, people with empathy for those outside the group. 

 

Another poem about deconstruction that I really loved was this one. 

 

Mysteries, Yes

 

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous

            to be understood.

 

How grass can be nourishing in the 

            mouths of the lambs.

How rivers and stones are forever 

            in allegiance with gravity

                        while we ourselves dream of rising. 

How two hands touch and the bonds will

            never be broken.

How people come, from delight or the

            scars of damage,

to the comfort of a poem.

 

Let me keep my distance, always, from those

            who think they have the answers.

 

Let me keep company always with those who say

            “Look!” and laugh in astonishment,

            and bow their heads.

 

Yes, let me keep my distances from those who think they have the answers to everything. Always. 

 

Another long poem that was excellent, but too much to reproduce in full, is the title poem, Evidence. I did want to quote a few stanzas, though, which were particularly excellent. 

 

I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in 

singing, especially when singing is not necessarily 

prescribed. 

 

And this one:

 

Memory: a golden bowl, or a basement without light.

 

For which reason the nightmare comes with its

painful story and says: you need to know this.

 

Some memories I would give anything to forget. 

Others I would not give up upon the point of

death, they are the bright hawks of my life. 

 

Oliver was sexually abused as a child, although she never gave details publicly. I can guess that those might be some memories she would prefer to forget. And maybe also ones who made her who she is. I too have memories that fall into those categories (although for different reasons.) 

 

Next is this somewhat humorous poem, the sort of prayer I would love to pray myself. 

 

Prayer

 

May I never not be frisky,

May I never not be risqué.

 

May my ashes, when you have them, friend,

and give them to the ocean,

 

leap in the froth of the waves,

still loving movement,

 

still ready, beyond all else,

to dance for the world.

 

Another poem, from Thirst, which contains a lot of religious imagery, is about prayer as well. 

 

Praying

 

It doesn’t have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

 

a few words together and don’t try

to make them elaborate, this isn’t

a contest but the doorway

 

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

 

I am somewhat reminded of a song by Chris LeDoux that also seems so much more real than the self-important excuse for manipulation that so many prayers seem to be. 

 

A nature poem opens the next collection, The Truro Bear and Other Adventures.

 

The Other Kingdoms

 

Consider the other kingdoms. The

trees, for example, with their mellow-sounding

titles: oak, aspen, willow.

Or the snow, for which the peoples of the north

have dozens of words to describe its

different arrivals. Or the creatures, with their

thick fur, their shy and wordless gaze. Their

infallible sense of what their lives

are meant to be. Thus the world

grows rich, grows wild, and you too,

grow rich, grow sweetly wild, as you too

were born to be. 

 

Next, I want to feature a particular poem from Red Bird that really must be seen on the page. I cannot guarantee this blog will reproduce correctly on your device, so if it looks off, check it out in print. The fun in this poem can be read in two different ways and still make sense. Either across, or in two columns. 

 

Night Herons

 

Some herons                           and that was the end of them

were fishing                            as far as we know - 

in the robes                              thought, what do we know

of the night                              except that death

 

at a low hour                           is so everywhere and so entire - 

of the water’s body                 pummeling and felling,

and the fish, I suppose,           of sometimes,

were full                                  like this, appearing

 

of fish happiness                     through such a thin door -

in those transparent inches      one stab, and you’re through!

even as, over and over,           And what then?

the beaks jacked down           Why, then it was almost morning,

 

and the narrow                                    and one by one

bodies were lifted                   the birds

with every                               opened their wings

quick sally,                              and flew. 

 

And here is another nature poem from the same collection, one which seems appropriate for our political moment:

 

Mornings at Blackwater

 

For years, every morning, I drank

from Blackwater Pond. 

It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,

the feet of ducks.

 

And always it assuaged me

from the dry bowl of the very far past.

 

What I want to say is

that the past is the past,

and the present is what your life is,

and you are capable

of choosing what that will be,

darling citizen. 

 

So come to the pond,

or the river of your imagination,

or the harbor of your longing,

 

and put your lips to the world.

And live.

your life.

 

There is another bit about living one’s life found in “Sometimes,” one of the longer poems. The whole poem is really excellent, so I recommend looking it up. Here is the bit I particularly noted:

 

4. 

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

 

That is, perhaps, why I write this blog. To tell about what I have noticed and been astonished by.

 

I mentioned earlier that I thought Oliver was one of our modern prophets. If there is one poem which will endure as a symbol of the time we live in, of the American Empire, in all its cruel capitalism and white supremacy, this is it .It also describes the MAGA and white Evangelical ethos perfectly - what they really believe in practice, not the lies they tell themselves. I have quoted it so many times over the last decade, because it is pure truth. 

 

Of The Empire

 

We will be known as a culture that feared death

and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity

for the few and cared little for the penury of the

many. We will be known as a culture that taught

and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke 

little if at all about the quality of life for

people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All

the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a

commodity. And they will say that this structure

was held together politically, which it was, and 

they will say also that our politics was no more 

than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of

the heart, and that the heart, in those days,

was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

 

This has been the greatest shock to me, to realize about the people who raised me, about the church I grew up in, that these people have hard, small, and really fucking mean hearts. The idea that other people should matter to them - people outside of their tribe - doesn’t register at all. They casually speak of ethnic cleansing as if it were the only alternative. They refer to other ethnicities as “problems.” They casually reject the idea that we should take in refugees. They refer to immigrants as “fugitives from justice.” They openly state that it is acceptable for people to die because they lack the money for housing, food, or healthcare. 

 

And don’t get me started on how religious people fear death more than anyone else, and the more religious they are, the more terrified they are of death. And also how religious people seem more prone than others to see everyone else as commodities. (On average. The worst for this are rich fucks like Trump and Elon, who has openly referred to other people as NPCs.) 

 

Oliver really nailed it. And, more than anything else, this is why I likely will never participate in organized religion again. It seems nothing more than an apparatus to accommodate hard, cruel hearts. 

 

On a far lighter note, this next one is a bit how I feel these days. 

 

Self-Portrait

 

I wish I was twenty and in love with life

            and still full of beans.

 

Onward, old legs!

There are the long, pale dunes; on the other side

the roses are blooming and finding their labor

no adversity to the spirit.

 

Upward, old legs! There are the roses, and there is the sea

shining like a song, like a body

I want to touch

 

though I’m not twenty

and won’t be again but ah! seventy. And still

in love with life. And still

full of beans.

I’ll end with this musing, another poem which resonates with my own journey. 

 

Thirst

 

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, expect-

ing to be told to pack nothing, except the

prayers which, with this thirst, I am 

slowly learning. 

 

Once again, Oliver captures the feelings of the heart, the deepest longings, the unspeakable thirst. It was good to again read her poems.