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Twelve Moons
In her fourth volume of poetry, Twelve Moons, Pulitzer Prize-winning Mary Oliver continues to explore the alluring, yet well-nigh inaccessible kingdoms of nature and human relationships, and man's profound, persistent desire for a joyous union with them. These vibrant, magical poems pulse with an aching awareness of nature's unaffected beauty. Her absorbing intimate vision leads us into the natural and human kingdoms we only fleetingly grasp.
77 pages, Paperback
First published August 30, 1979
37 people are currently reading
1528 people want to read
About the author
Mary Oliver
104 books8,763 followersMary Jane Oliver was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her work is inspired by nature, rather than the human world, stemming from her lifelong passion for solitary walks in the wild.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 157 reviews
June 29, 2022
Mary Oliver spent a lot of time in the woods. I felt like I was walking in the woods with her while reading this one. Loved all of the poems in this collection.
THE FAWN
Sunday morning and mellow as precious metal
the church bells rang, but I went
to the woods instead.
A fawn, too new
for fear, rose from the grass
and stood with its spots blazing,
and knowing no way but words,
no trick but music,
I sang to him.
He listened.
His small hooves struck the grass.
Oh what is holiness?
The fawn came closer,
walked to my hands, to my knees.
I did not touch him.
I only sang, and when the doe came back
calling out to him dolefully
and he turned and followed her into the trees,
still I sang,
not knowing how to end such a joyful text,
until far off the bells once more tipped and tumbled
and rang through the morning, announcing
the going forth of the blessed.
THE FAWN
Sunday morning and mellow as precious metal
the church bells rang, but I went
to the woods instead.
A fawn, too new
for fear, rose from the grass
and stood with its spots blazing,
and knowing no way but words,
no trick but music,
I sang to him.
He listened.
His small hooves struck the grass.
Oh what is holiness?
The fawn came closer,
walked to my hands, to my knees.
I did not touch him.
I only sang, and when the doe came back
calling out to him dolefully
and he turned and followed her into the trees,
still I sang,
not knowing how to end such a joyful text,
until far off the bells once more tipped and tumbled
and rang through the morning, announcing
the going forth of the blessed.
March 21, 2020
and what will i do now, with all this warmth in my heart and the love on my skin, after having read this? miss oliver, you're the only reason i keep on coming home.
favorites: every single one
favorites: every single one
May 28, 2019
I recently read Mary Oliver’s first two books, No Voyage (1963) and The River Styx, Ohio (1972), and—although both contained well-written poems—few seemed to be completely the work of the Mary Oliver I have come cherish. Too many were rhymed and rigid, others far too cautious, still others too derived from Dickinson or Millay. But now, with Mary’s fourth book Twelve Moons (1979), the compleat poet has arrived. Her spirit, witty and wiry, is thoroughly immersed in nature—in life, in death—and returns, from both darkness and light. to the wild heart of love again. (This book, in fact, is so good that I’ve already ordered her third book The Night Traveler (1978) from Interlibrary Loan, just to make sure I didn’t miss something special along the way.)
To give you an idea why I loved this book, I offer you these three complete poems:
THE BLACK SNAKE
When the black snake
flashed onto the morning road,
and the truck could not swerve —
death, that is how it happens.
Now he lies looped and useless
as an old bicycle tire.
I stop the car
and carry him into the bushes.
He is cool and gleaming
as a braided whip, he is as beautiful and quiet
as a dead brother.
I leave him under the leaves
and drive on, thinking
about death: its suddenness,
its terrible weight,
its certain coming. Yet under
reason burns a brighter fire, which the bones
have always preferred.
It is the story of endless good fortune.
It says to oblivion: not me!
It is the light at the center of every cell.
It is what sent the snake coiling and flowing forward
happily all spring through the green leaves before
he came to the road.
ENTERING THE KINGDOM
The crows see me.
They stretch their glossy necks
In the tallest branches
Of green trees. I am
Possibly dangerous. I am
Entering the kingdom.
The dream of my life
Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees —
To learn something by being nothing
A little while but the rich
Lens of attention.
But the crows puff their feathers and cry
Between my and the sun,
And I should go now.
They know me for what I anm.
No dreamer,
no eater of leaves.
THE BLACK WALNUT TREE
My mother and I debate:
we could sell
the black walnut tree
to the lumberman,
and pay off the mortgage.
Likely some storm anyway
will churn down its dark boughs,
smashing the house. We talk
slowly, two women trying
in a difficult time to be wise.
Roots in the cellar drains,
I say, and she replies
that the leaves are getting heavier
every year, and the fruit
harder to gather away.
But something brighter than money
moves in our blood — an edge
sharp and quick as a trowel
that wants to dig and sow.
So we talk, but we don’t do
anything. That night I dream
of my fathers out of Bohemia
filling the blue fields
of fresh and generous Ohio
with leaves and vines and orchards.
What my mother and I both know
is that we’d crawl with shame
in the emptiness we’d made
in our own and our fathers’ backyard.
So the black walnut tree
swings through another year
of sun and leaping winds,
of leaves and bounding fruit,
and, month after month, the whip-
crack of the mortgage.
May 20, 2023
This collection explores death, grief, suicide, etc. A more somber metaphorical approach with nature than what I have read so far from Oliver.
“The Lamps”- “But of course the darkness keeps its appointment. Each evening, an inscrutable presence, it has the final word outside every door.”
At Blackwater Pond- “You know how it feels, wanting to walk into the rain and disappear— wanting to feel your life brighten and grow weightless. And sometimes for a moment you feel it beginning— the sense of escape..”
“Beaver Moon— The Suicide of a Friend”- “and somewhere, for someone, life is becoming moment by moment unbearable.”
“The Lamps”- “But of course the darkness keeps its appointment. Each evening, an inscrutable presence, it has the final word outside every door.”
At Blackwater Pond- “You know how it feels, wanting to walk into the rain and disappear— wanting to feel your life brighten and grow weightless. And sometimes for a moment you feel it beginning— the sense of escape..”
“Beaver Moon— The Suicide of a Friend”- “and somewhere, for someone, life is becoming moment by moment unbearable.”
June 7, 2016
Harvest Moon-The Mockingbird Sings in the Night
No sky could hold
so much light--
and her comes the brimming,
the flooding and streaming
out of the clouds
and into the leaves,
glazing the creeks,
the smallest ditches!
and so many stars!
The sky seems stretched
like an old black cloth;
behind it, all
the celestial frie
we ever dreams of!
And the mon steps lower,
quietly changing
her luminous masks, brushing
everything as she passes
with her slow hands
and soft lips'
clusters of dark grapes,
apples swinging like lost planets,
melons cool and heavy as bodies--
and the mockingbird wakes
in his hidden castle;
out of the silver tangle
of thorns and leaves
he flutters and tumbles,
spilling song
ribbons of music
over forest and river,
copse and cloud-
wherever the white moon
fancies her small wild prince-
field after field after field.
Beaver Moon-The Suicide of a Friend
When somewhere life
breaks like a pane of glass,
and from every direction casual
voices are bringing you the news,
you say: I should have been aware.
That last Friday he looked
so ill, like an old mountain-climber
lost on the white trails, listening
to the ice breaking upward, under
his worn-out shoes. You say:
I heard rumors of trouble, but after all
we all have that. You say:
what could I have don? and you go
with the rest, to bury him.
That night, you turn in your bed
to watch the moon rise, and once more
see what a small coin it is
against the darkness, and how everything else
is a myster, and you know
nothing at all except
the moonlight is beautiful-
white rivers running together
along the bare boughs of the trees--
and somewhere, for someone, life
is becoming moment by moment
unbearable.
These poems of Mary Oliver's are not all uplifting like those in "American Primitive." They bring up memories that I have. But she has some beautiful poems in this book, not that the last one isn't, just that I like being lifted up.
No sky could hold
so much light--
and her comes the brimming,
the flooding and streaming
out of the clouds
and into the leaves,
glazing the creeks,
the smallest ditches!
and so many stars!
The sky seems stretched
like an old black cloth;
behind it, all
the celestial frie
we ever dreams of!
And the mon steps lower,
quietly changing
her luminous masks, brushing
everything as she passes
with her slow hands
and soft lips'
clusters of dark grapes,
apples swinging like lost planets,
melons cool and heavy as bodies--
and the mockingbird wakes
in his hidden castle;
out of the silver tangle
of thorns and leaves
he flutters and tumbles,
spilling song
ribbons of music
over forest and river,
copse and cloud-
wherever the white moon
fancies her small wild prince-
field after field after field.
Beaver Moon-The Suicide of a Friend
When somewhere life
breaks like a pane of glass,
and from every direction casual
voices are bringing you the news,
you say: I should have been aware.
That last Friday he looked
so ill, like an old mountain-climber
lost on the white trails, listening
to the ice breaking upward, under
his worn-out shoes. You say:
I heard rumors of trouble, but after all
we all have that. You say:
what could I have don? and you go
with the rest, to bury him.
That night, you turn in your bed
to watch the moon rise, and once more
see what a small coin it is
against the darkness, and how everything else
is a myster, and you know
nothing at all except
the moonlight is beautiful-
white rivers running together
along the bare boughs of the trees--
and somewhere, for someone, life
is becoming moment by moment
unbearable.
These poems of Mary Oliver's are not all uplifting like those in "American Primitive." They bring up memories that I have. But she has some beautiful poems in this book, not that the last one isn't, just that I like being lifted up.
September 3, 2016
My copy of this book of poems is filled with dog eared pages. There are so many good ones in this volume. She has such a familiar, yet original way of relating to the natural world. She can somehow both minimize and maximize the human experience in a way that I can only describe as honest. Sometimes I feel like she is writing my soul with her words.
March 20, 2021
“And probably everything is possible”
This collection is the earliest work that I own of Mary Oliver, but it is not juvenile at all. She had her voice toned in from the very beginning of her long career, and this collection does not disappoint one bit. It has a large variety of poems, and a good portion are her pondering what occurs after death and the reality of living after a death occurs. She touches on parental death, cancer, suicide and the life cycle of nature (including a shark waiting patiently for a swimmer).
Love this collection and found a few of the poems, after annotating, to be extremely deep, moving and haunting. I love Mary Oliver and she has not once disappointed with a collection
This collection is the earliest work that I own of Mary Oliver, but it is not juvenile at all. She had her voice toned in from the very beginning of her long career, and this collection does not disappoint one bit. It has a large variety of poems, and a good portion are her pondering what occurs after death and the reality of living after a death occurs. She touches on parental death, cancer, suicide and the life cycle of nature (including a shark waiting patiently for a swimmer).
Love this collection and found a few of the poems, after annotating, to be extremely deep, moving and haunting. I love Mary Oliver and she has not once disappointed with a collection
January 3, 2021
“... because it is spring;
because once more the moon and the earth are eloping-
a love match that will bring forth fantastic children
who will learn to stand, walk, and final run over the surface of the earth;
who will believe, for years,
that everything is possible.”
this little poetry book is filled with such beautiful descriptions of nature and tiny things found within her loving arms. i loved reading it and picturing all that Oliver describes in my mind.
i would love to live in the forests and bogs and homes such as described in this book of poems.
because once more the moon and the earth are eloping-
a love match that will bring forth fantastic children
who will learn to stand, walk, and final run over the surface of the earth;
who will believe, for years,
that everything is possible.”
this little poetry book is filled with such beautiful descriptions of nature and tiny things found within her loving arms. i loved reading it and picturing all that Oliver describes in my mind.
i would love to live in the forests and bogs and homes such as described in this book of poems.
March 9, 2024
Beautiful; somehow she echos and expands my thoughts.
“He listened. His small hooves struck the grass. Oh what is holiness?” (13)
“He listened. His small hooves struck the grass. Oh what is holiness?” (13)
May 29, 2024
only mary oliver can get me out of my reading slumps. the most beautiful collection i’ve read in recent years, easily. stand out poems:
sleeping in the forest (obviously)
the lamb
the fawn
aunt leaf
the black walnut tree
sleeping in the forest (obviously)
the lamb
the fawn
aunt leaf
the black walnut tree
December 23, 2018
One of the calendars I've had next to my desk all year featured the twelve moons Oliver centered this poetry collection upon, and so it feels fitting that this is one of my last books of 2018. It's a beautiful, rhythmic collection, with rivers of imagery I recognize as home.
[Five stars for so many poems I needed to read this month of all months.]
[Five stars for so many poems I needed to read this month of all months.]
December 16, 2024
A series of poems about life & death. About seeing ourselves in nature & nature seeing itself within us - because we are everything that nature is like a mirror. I’ll never tire of a Mary Oliver poem ✨
Read
March 6, 2025There is a small (like, really very small) handful of artists it would be unimaginable to love, despite their clout, and miss Oliver is one.
November 20, 2025
Mary Oliver is a true gift to the earth; she writes with astounding appreciation. I want my words to sing like river water and seep with infinite love.
November 13, 2025
I think Pink Moon-The Pond has become my new favorite Mary Oliver poem 🌝🌚
Read
December 30, 2024Yearning once again!
June 26, 2018
I decided recently I needed to read Mary Oliver, rather than just know that she is adjacent to a lot of people I read regularly if not religiously. Twelve Moons was as close to the beginning as I could get, and it was thoroughly rewarding. The high points are many and dizzying. Coming down to a merely good poem after was very disorienting, so I went back to a dozen or more called out by reviewers and on the second or third read those began to really grow on me as well. I should buy this. I should hand it out to someone every Christmas. I am ridiculous enough to enjoy poems about God and nature and beauty, often with the darkness that trails behind them.
July 16, 2022
“by morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better”. it’s mary oliver so it’s an automatic 5 stars
March 23, 2022
This volume is among Mary Oliver’s handful of early collections, but it’s the only one of the handful that’s still in print. Although these poems are more refined than her earlier works, they demonstrate her developing voice and vision to express her need for a harmonic engagement with the natural world. Whether she is adventuring through a forest or gathering up mussels in a pail, she seeks to learn from the living, breathing environment. In a poem like “The Black Snake,” she ponders the sudden weight and sorrow of death, but she concludes that what’s most worthwhile in life is “the light of the center of every cell.” For Oliver, this light can bring us joy throughout our time on Earth, but only if we learn to engage with what life and nature have to teach us. One of the most powerful poems in this volume in a narrative piece about the unjust alienation of her great-aunt.
August 20, 2021
"now i listen as fall rides in the wagons of the wind, lighting up the world with red, yellow, and the long-leaved ash as blue as fire, and i know there's no end to it, the kingdoms crying out -- and no end to the voices the heart can hear once it's started. already like small white birds snow is falling from the ledges of the north, each flake singing with its tiny mouth as it wings out into the wind, whispering about love, about darkness as it balances in the clear air, as it whirls down."
if you love poetry, please please please read of work of mary oliver. i truly adore how she uses nature, especially in a forest-like setting to create parallels to experiences she's had in her life and memories that still haunt her. i'm truly obsessed.
if you love poetry, please please please read of work of mary oliver. i truly adore how she uses nature, especially in a forest-like setting to create parallels to experiences she's had in her life and memories that still haunt her. i'm truly obsessed.
December 5, 2020
I wasn't totally thrilled by this collection at first. Obviously, a not-so-thrilling Oliver poem can be far superior than many people's entire oveur, but while I found some of the earlier selections observant and wise, they didn't snap with emotion in the way her best poems do. But the second half, including the magnificent "Aunt Leaf," brought me back to that sheer pleasure.
March 18, 2018
i love her nature poetry like everyone else does, but this has some more personal poems as well as political ones. those always seem to get left out of the anthologies. can't handle it? huh, poetry world?
January 13, 2025
"And that's when it happens-/ you see everything/ through their eyes,/ their joy, their necessity; you wear their webbed fingers;/ your throat swells./ And that's when you know/ you will live whether you will or not, / one way or another,/ because everything is everything else,/ one long muscle."
November 5, 2019
Jag trodde inte att naturskildringar var något för mig. Sen läste jag Mary Oliver.
February 26, 2024
I wish I knew what a gift this book was going to be to me when I bought it for myself for my birthday.
That was quite possibly one of the best things I've ever read.
That was quite possibly one of the best things I've ever read.
June 17, 2025
mary hittet einfach immer
June 9, 2024
An all time favorite poet of mine. “Sleeping in the Forest” was the first poem I read by the author and my very lovely and alluring introduction into the world of poetry at about age 13 or 14. I highly recommend this book that blends nature, life, death, the spiritual, and hope. Like what is within the poems, it is timeless.
July 9, 2025
So many beautiful poems about humanity’s relationship with nature, and all the fear, awe, eroticism, and at times violence that entails.
December 16, 2015
Poems
(Favorites marked with **)
Sleeping in the Forest
Mussels
The Lamb
Pink Moon --- The Pond
The Black Snake
Spring
Flower Moon --- How She Travels
Stone Poem
The Fawn **
Strawberry Moon
The Truro Bear
Raccoons
Entering the Kingdom **
Lil
Turtles **
Music Lessons
Buck Moon --- From the Field Guide to Insects
Dreams
Bats
Two Horses
Sharks
Sturgeon Moon --- The Death of Meriwether Lewis
Swamp
Harvest Moon --- The Mockingbird Sings in the Night
The Lamps **
Poem for My Father's Ghost
Aerialists
Looking for Mushrooms
Bone Poem
Aunt Leaf
At Blackwater Pond
Hunter's Moon --- Eating the Bear
Last Days
Winter Sleep
Sunday Morning, High Tide
Beaver Moon --- The Suicide of a Friend
The Black Walnut Tree
For Eleanor **
Storm
Cold Moon --- Hannah's Children
Stark County Holidays
Christmas Poem **
Snakes in Winter
Wolf Moon
Neutralities
The Night Traveler
Winter Trees
Snow Moon --- Black Bear Gives Birth
A Blessing
Worm Moon
(Favorites marked with **)
Sleeping in the Forest
Mussels
The Lamb
Pink Moon --- The Pond
The Black Snake
Spring
Flower Moon --- How She Travels
Stone Poem
The Fawn **
Strawberry Moon
The Truro Bear
Raccoons
Entering the Kingdom **
Lil
Turtles **
Music Lessons
Buck Moon --- From the Field Guide to Insects
Dreams
Bats
Two Horses
Sharks
Sturgeon Moon --- The Death of Meriwether Lewis
Swamp
Harvest Moon --- The Mockingbird Sings in the Night
The Lamps **
Poem for My Father's Ghost
Aerialists
Looking for Mushrooms
Bone Poem
Aunt Leaf
At Blackwater Pond
Hunter's Moon --- Eating the Bear
Last Days
Winter Sleep
Sunday Morning, High Tide
Beaver Moon --- The Suicide of a Friend
The Black Walnut Tree
For Eleanor **
Storm
Cold Moon --- Hannah's Children
Stark County Holidays
Christmas Poem **
Snakes in Winter
Wolf Moon
Neutralities
The Night Traveler
Winter Trees
Snow Moon --- Black Bear Gives Birth
A Blessing
Worm Moon
July 29, 2021
A wonderful collection of poems by a wonderful poet.
For some reason, these struck me as a bit more sad, but maybe I read that into them. I thought perhaps it was the death of her partner, but that was many years in the future. Also many years before Mary herself became ill. Perhaps it is only the unsettled times we live in, with death peeking around every corner.
Mary still always ends on a note of hope, immersed in the wonder and beauty of nature, awestruck and healed by the sheer magnitude of creation. Mary Oliver's poems always take me on a journey with her, and that is why I reread her poetry as often as I can. You can too.
For some reason, these struck me as a bit more sad, but maybe I read that into them. I thought perhaps it was the death of her partner, but that was many years in the future. Also many years before Mary herself became ill. Perhaps it is only the unsettled times we live in, with death peeking around every corner.
Mary still always ends on a note of hope, immersed in the wonder and beauty of nature, awestruck and healed by the sheer magnitude of creation. Mary Oliver's poems always take me on a journey with her, and that is why I reread her poetry as often as I can. You can too.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 157 reviews