Mary Oliver
I was so sad to hear of the recent passing of my favorite poet, Mary Oliver. Mary’s poems change lives. Including mine. I discovered her when I needed her. Long ago, her poems, Wild Geese and The Journey, pulled me up from the depths of depression when most days I felt like I was walking through wet cotton wool.
Mary, you leave behind a world of wonder, beauty, and love. Though my heart breaks that you are no longer physically with us, your indomitable spirit lives on in your poems. And, as you wrote in When Death Comes:
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up having simply visited this world.
I hope at the end you didn’t have to wonder…
Rest in Peace, Mary Oliver (September 10, 1935-January 17, 2019)
