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The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays
From a poet who teaches us the beauty and magic of the natural world comes a reminder that this world includes "the creatures, with their / thick fur, their shy and wordless gaze. Their / infallible sense of what their lives / are meant to be."
In The Truro Bear and Other Adventures , Mary Oliver brings together ten new poems, thirty-five of her classic poems, and two essays, all about mammals, insects, and reptiles. The award-winning poet considers beasts of all bears, snakes, spiders, porcupines, humpback whales, hermit crabs, and, of course, her beloved and disobedient little dog, Percy, who appears and even speaks in thirteen poems, the closing section of this volume.
As Renée Loth has observed in the Boston Globe , "Mary Oliver, who won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 1983, is my choice for her joyous, accessible, intimate observations of the natural world . . . She teaches us the profound act of paying attention."
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day" (one of the poems in this volume)
In The Truro Bear and Other Adventures , Mary Oliver brings together ten new poems, thirty-five of her classic poems, and two essays, all about mammals, insects, and reptiles. The award-winning poet considers beasts of all bears, snakes, spiders, porcupines, humpback whales, hermit crabs, and, of course, her beloved and disobedient little dog, Percy, who appears and even speaks in thirteen poems, the closing section of this volume.
As Renée Loth has observed in the Boston Globe , "Mary Oliver, who won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 1983, is my choice for her joyous, accessible, intimate observations of the natural world . . . She teaches us the profound act of paying attention."
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day" (one of the poems in this volume)
80 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
36 people are currently reading
845 people want to read
About the author
Mary Oliver
103 books8,826 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 120 reviews
April 1, 2012
Mary Oliver's poetry is like walking with a close friend while talking about all those things that "other" people would find a little strange.
Read
January 17, 2019beautiful, as always. mary oliver you make my heart so full.
December 22, 2020
'nothing will ever dazzle you, like the dreams of you body' and mary oliver's words which are so lovely, so beautiful, and make me realize just how much i miss living in the hills, sigh.
favorites: 'ghosts,' 'this is the one,' 'the other kingdoms,' 'five am in the pinewoods,' 'the summer day,' and the tenth percy poem
favorites: 'ghosts,' 'this is the one,' 'the other kingdoms,' 'five am in the pinewoods,' 'the summer day,' and the tenth percy poem
April 3, 2016
There as so many wonderful stories out there and I have read many poets who show much talent and creativity. Real talent, however, is evident when one finds a collection of poems that speaks to the heart and walks with one's soul. Nature provides such a wonderful canvas for creativity and acts almost like God's poetry if we just take the time to appreciate it. This collection shows the joy, beauty, and the precious gift that animals and nature truly are and is easily one of my all time favorites ♡♡♡
December 8, 2020
Oliver's eyes are so much better than mine at finding the beauty, comedy, and tragedy in nature, including human nature. I appreciate her work.
October 19, 2018
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.
Black Snake
I startled a young black snake: he
flew over the grass and hid his face
under a leaf, the rest of him in plain sight.
Little brother, often I’ve done the same.
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.
Black Snake
I startled a young black snake: he
flew over the grass and hid his face
under a leaf, the rest of him in plain sight.
Little brother, often I’ve done the same.
August 7, 2021
Mary Oliver has been a light in the darkness this year. Her poetry will help you face fear, be grateful, love nature and be present. If you haven't read any of her poetry yet, now is the time to begin. Just choose one on the internet and you'll see what I mean.
November 9, 2017
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
September 13, 2019
i feel so raw and wide open...i want to know more and for my eyes to open wide!! i want to see the world better!!!!
March 5, 2024
Mary Oliver is a treasure I cannot live without.
January 23, 2023
<33333
the kitten
more amazed than anything
i took the perfectly black
stillborn kitten
with the one large eye
in the center of its small forehead
from the house cat's bed
and buried it in a field behind the house.
i suppose i could have given it
to a museum,
i could have called the local
newspaper.
but instead i took it out into the field
and opened the earth
and put it back
saying, it was real,
saying, life is infinitely inventive,
saying, what other amazements
lie in the dark seed of the earth, yes,
i think i did right to go out alone
and give it back peacefully, and cover the place
with the reckless blossom of weeds.
the snow cricket
just beyond the leaves and the white faces
of the lilies,
i saw the wings
of the green snow cricket
as it went flying
from vine to vine,
searching, then finding a shadowed place in which
to sit and sing-
and by singing i mean, in this instance,
not just the work of the little mouth-cave,
but of every enfoldment of the body-
a signing that has no words
or a single bar of music
or anything more, in fact, than one repeated
rippling phrase
built of loneliness
and its consequences: longing
and hope.
pale and humped,
the snow cricket sat all evening
in a leafy hut, in the honeysuckle.
it was trembling
with the force
of its crying out,
and in truth i couldn't wait to see if another would come to it
for fear that it wouldn't,
and i wouldn't be able to bear it.
i wished it good luck, with all my heart,
and went back over the lawn, to where the lilies were standing
on their calm, cob feet,
each in the ease
of a single, waxy body
breathing contentedly in the chill night air;
and i swear i pitied them, as i looked down
into the theater of their perfect faces-
that frozen, bottomless glare.
the kitten
more amazed than anything
i took the perfectly black
stillborn kitten
with the one large eye
in the center of its small forehead
from the house cat's bed
and buried it in a field behind the house.
i suppose i could have given it
to a museum,
i could have called the local
newspaper.
but instead i took it out into the field
and opened the earth
and put it back
saying, it was real,
saying, life is infinitely inventive,
saying, what other amazements
lie in the dark seed of the earth, yes,
i think i did right to go out alone
and give it back peacefully, and cover the place
with the reckless blossom of weeds.
the snow cricket
just beyond the leaves and the white faces
of the lilies,
i saw the wings
of the green snow cricket
as it went flying
from vine to vine,
searching, then finding a shadowed place in which
to sit and sing-
and by singing i mean, in this instance,
not just the work of the little mouth-cave,
but of every enfoldment of the body-
a signing that has no words
or a single bar of music
or anything more, in fact, than one repeated
rippling phrase
built of loneliness
and its consequences: longing
and hope.
pale and humped,
the snow cricket sat all evening
in a leafy hut, in the honeysuckle.
it was trembling
with the force
of its crying out,
and in truth i couldn't wait to see if another would come to it
for fear that it wouldn't,
and i wouldn't be able to bear it.
i wished it good luck, with all my heart,
and went back over the lawn, to where the lilies were standing
on their calm, cob feet,
each in the ease
of a single, waxy body
breathing contentedly in the chill night air;
and i swear i pitied them, as i looked down
into the theater of their perfect faces-
that frozen, bottomless glare.
September 4, 2017
I find little new gems every time, every way, every line, every breath. I read somewhere about the repetition required from certain religions; every week, the lord's prayer, every week the vowing to be a good catholic. I finally get it. The bolded I could read and read over and again and need to say out loud.
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.
Humpbacks
There is, all around us, this country of original fire.
You know what I mean.
The sky, after all, stops at nothing,
so something has to be holding our bodies
in its rich and timeless stables or else we would fly away.
Off Stellwagen off the Cape, the humpbacks rise.
Carrying their tonnage of barnacles and joy
they leap through the water, they nuzzle back under it like children
at play. They sing, too. And not for any reason you can’t imagine.
Three of them rise to the surface near the bow of the boat,
then dive deeply, their huge scarred flukes tipped to the air.
We wait, not knowing just where it will happen;
suddenly they smash through the surface,
someone begins shouting for joy and you realize
it is yourself as they surge upward and you see
for the first time how huge they are, as they breach,
and dive, and breach again through the shining blue flowers
of the split water and you see them for some unbelievable
part of a moment against the sky—
like nothing you’ve ever imagined— like the myth
of the fifth morning galloping out of darkness,
pouring heavenward, spinning; then they crash back
under those black silks and we all fall back
together into that wet fire, you know what I mean.
I know a captain who has seen them playing with seaweed,
swimming through the green islands,
tossing the slippery branches into the air. I
know a whale that will come to the boat
whenever she can, and nudge it gently along
the bow with her long flipper. I know several lives worth living.
Listen, whatever it is you try to do with your life,
nothing will ever dazzle you like the dreams of your body,
its spirit longing to fly while the dead-weight bones toss
their dark mane and hurry back into the fields of glittering
fire where everything, even the great whale, throbs with song.
Whelks
Here are the perfect fans of the scallops,
quahogs, and weedy mussels
still holding their orange fruit—
and here are the whelks— whirlwinds,
each the size of a fist, but always cracked and broken
— clearly they have been traveling under the sky-blue waves for a long time.
All my life I have been restless— I have felt
there is something more wonderful than gloss
— than wholeness— than staying at home.
I have not been sure what it is. But every morning
on the wide shore I pass what is perfect and shining
to look for the whelks, whose edges have rubbed
so long against the world they have snapped and crumbled—
they have almost vanished, with the last relinquishing
of their unrepeatable energy, back into everything else.
When I find one I hold it in my hand, I look out over that shaking fire,
I shut my eyes. Not often, but now and again
there’s a moment when the heart cries aloud:
yes, I am willing to be
that wild darkness,
that long, blue body of light.
The Truro Bear
But the seed has been planted, and when has happiness ever required much evidence to begin its leaf-green breathing?
Pipefish
I opened my hands— like a promise I would keep my whole life, and have— and let it go. I tell you this in case you have yet to wade
into the green and purple shallows where the diminutive pipefish wants to go on living. I tell you this against everything you are— your human heart, your hands passing over the world, gathering and closing, so dry and slow.
The Summer Day
Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
how to fall down into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
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.
Humpbacks
There is, all around us, this country of original fire.
You know what I mean.
The sky, after all, stops at nothing,
so something has to be holding our bodies
in its rich and timeless stables or else we would fly away.
Off Stellwagen off the Cape, the humpbacks rise.
Carrying their tonnage of barnacles and joy
they leap through the water, they nuzzle back under it like children
at play. They sing, too. And not for any reason you can’t imagine.
Three of them rise to the surface near the bow of the boat,
then dive deeply, their huge scarred flukes tipped to the air.
We wait, not knowing just where it will happen;
suddenly they smash through the surface,
someone begins shouting for joy and you realize
it is yourself as they surge upward and you see
for the first time how huge they are, as they breach,
and dive, and breach again through the shining blue flowers
of the split water and you see them for some unbelievable
part of a moment against the sky—
like nothing you’ve ever imagined— like the myth
of the fifth morning galloping out of darkness,
pouring heavenward, spinning; then they crash back
under those black silks and we all fall back
together into that wet fire, you know what I mean.
I know a captain who has seen them playing with seaweed,
swimming through the green islands,
tossing the slippery branches into the air. I
know a whale that will come to the boat
whenever she can, and nudge it gently along
the bow with her long flipper. I know several lives worth living.
Listen, whatever it is you try to do with your life,
nothing will ever dazzle you like the dreams of your body,
its spirit longing to fly while the dead-weight bones toss
their dark mane and hurry back into the fields of glittering
fire where everything, even the great whale, throbs with song.
Whelks
Here are the perfect fans of the scallops,
quahogs, and weedy mussels
still holding their orange fruit—
and here are the whelks— whirlwinds,
each the size of a fist, but always cracked and broken
— clearly they have been traveling under the sky-blue waves for a long time.
All my life I have been restless— I have felt
there is something more wonderful than gloss
— than wholeness— than staying at home.
I have not been sure what it is. But every morning
on the wide shore I pass what is perfect and shining
to look for the whelks, whose edges have rubbed
so long against the world they have snapped and crumbled—
they have almost vanished, with the last relinquishing
of their unrepeatable energy, back into everything else.
When I find one I hold it in my hand, I look out over that shaking fire,
I shut my eyes. Not often, but now and again
there’s a moment when the heart cries aloud:
yes, I am willing to be
that wild darkness,
that long, blue body of light.
The Truro Bear
But the seed has been planted, and when has happiness ever required much evidence to begin its leaf-green breathing?
Pipefish
I opened my hands— like a promise I would keep my whole life, and have— and let it go. I tell you this in case you have yet to wade
into the green and purple shallows where the diminutive pipefish wants to go on living. I tell you this against everything you are— your human heart, your hands passing over the world, gathering and closing, so dry and slow.
The Summer Day
Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
how to fall down into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
December 30, 2021
Tell me you love me, he says.
Tell me again.
Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over he gets to ask it.
I get to tell.
Tell me again.
Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over he gets to ask it.
I get to tell.
December 28, 2024
What I would give to have had a chance to take a stroll through the woods looking for wildlife with Mary Oliver
June 2, 2025
"how many summers does a little dog have?"
not my favorite set of her work but it still carries her magic and warmth 🫶🏼 the percy poems were my favorite 🤧💗
not my favorite set of her work but it still carries her magic and warmth 🫶🏼 the percy poems were my favorite 🤧💗
December 24, 2016
What can I say? I have made it clear how much I love Mary Oliver and this collection is no different. I am including the poems from this collection that I just cannot live without and want to be able to reference again. However, the best part of this collection for me was the essay titled Swoon. I may have to type that one out for myself because it is so beautiful and...it is about a spider!
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.
Whelks
Here are the perfect
fans of the scallops,
quahogs, and weedy mussels
still holding their orange fruit –
and here are the whelks –
whirlwinds,
each the size of a fist,
but always cracked and broken –
clearly they have been travelling
under the sky-blue waves
for a long time.
All my life
I have been restless –
I have felt there is something
more wonderful than gloss –
than wholeness –
than staying at home.
I have not been sure what it is.
But every morning on the wide shore
I pass what is perfect and shining
to look for the whelks, whose edges
have rubbed so long against the world
they have snapped and crumbled –
they have almost vanished,
with the last relinquishing
of their unrepeatable energy,
back into everything else.
When I find one
I hold it in my hand,
I look out over that shanking fire,
I shut my eyes. Not often,
but now and again there’s a moment
when the heart cries aloud:
yes, I am willing to be
that wild darkness,
that long, blue body of light.
The Gift
After the wind-bruised sea
furrowed itself back
into the folds of blue, I found
in the black wrack
a shell called the Neptune -
tawny and white,
spherical,
with a tail
and a tower
and a dark door,
and all of it
no larger
than my fist.
It looked, you might say,
very expensive.
I thought of its travels
in the Atlantic's
wind-pounded bowl
and wondered
that it was still intact.
Ah yes, there was
that door
that held only the eventual, inevitable
emptiness.
There's that - there's always that.
Still, what a house
to leave behind!
I held it
like the wisest of books
and imagined
its travels toward my hand.
And now, your hand.
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Percy (One)
Our new dog, named for the beloved poet,
Ate a book which unfortunately we had
Left unguarded.
Fortunately it was the Bhagavad Gita,
Of which many copies are available.
Every day now, as Percy grows
Into the beauty of his life, we touch
His wild, curly head and say,
“Oh, wisest of little dogs.”
Percy and Books (Eight)
Percy does not like it when I read a book.
He puts his face over the top of it and moans.
He rolls his eyes, sometimes he sneezes.
The sun is up, he says, and the wind is down.
The tide is out and the neighbor's dogs are playing.
But Percy, I say, Ideas! The elegance of language!
The insights, the funniness, the beautiful stories
that rise and fall and turn into strength, or courage.
Books? says Percy. I ate one once, and it was enough. Let's go.
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.
Whelks
Here are the perfect
fans of the scallops,
quahogs, and weedy mussels
still holding their orange fruit –
and here are the whelks –
whirlwinds,
each the size of a fist,
but always cracked and broken –
clearly they have been travelling
under the sky-blue waves
for a long time.
All my life
I have been restless –
I have felt there is something
more wonderful than gloss –
than wholeness –
than staying at home.
I have not been sure what it is.
But every morning on the wide shore
I pass what is perfect and shining
to look for the whelks, whose edges
have rubbed so long against the world
they have snapped and crumbled –
they have almost vanished,
with the last relinquishing
of their unrepeatable energy,
back into everything else.
When I find one
I hold it in my hand,
I look out over that shanking fire,
I shut my eyes. Not often,
but now and again there’s a moment
when the heart cries aloud:
yes, I am willing to be
that wild darkness,
that long, blue body of light.
The Gift
After the wind-bruised sea
furrowed itself back
into the folds of blue, I found
in the black wrack
a shell called the Neptune -
tawny and white,
spherical,
with a tail
and a tower
and a dark door,
and all of it
no larger
than my fist.
It looked, you might say,
very expensive.
I thought of its travels
in the Atlantic's
wind-pounded bowl
and wondered
that it was still intact.
Ah yes, there was
that door
that held only the eventual, inevitable
emptiness.
There's that - there's always that.
Still, what a house
to leave behind!
I held it
like the wisest of books
and imagined
its travels toward my hand.
And now, your hand.
The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Percy (One)
Our new dog, named for the beloved poet,
Ate a book which unfortunately we had
Left unguarded.
Fortunately it was the Bhagavad Gita,
Of which many copies are available.
Every day now, as Percy grows
Into the beauty of his life, we touch
His wild, curly head and say,
“Oh, wisest of little dogs.”
Percy and Books (Eight)
Percy does not like it when I read a book.
He puts his face over the top of it and moans.
He rolls his eyes, sometimes he sneezes.
The sun is up, he says, and the wind is down.
The tide is out and the neighbor's dogs are playing.
But Percy, I say, Ideas! The elegance of language!
The insights, the funniness, the beautiful stories
that rise and fall and turn into strength, or courage.
Books? says Percy. I ate one once, and it was enough. Let's go.
June 23, 2024
Listen, whatever it is you try
to do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you
like the dreams of your body,
its spirit
longing to fly while the dead-weight bones
toss their dark mane and hurry
back into the fields of glittering fire
I’m afraid this one wasn’t for me
to do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you
like the dreams of your body,
its spirit
longing to fly while the dead-weight bones
toss their dark mane and hurry
back into the fields of glittering fire
I’m afraid this one wasn’t for me
April 26, 2020
This is my favorite book by Mary Oliver. It is a collection of 55 poems (with two essays) all about animals: bears, snakes, spiders, porcupines, humpback whales, and others. I love having these all in one book!
Some excerpts:
Humpbacks
There is, all around us, the country
Of original fire.
You know what I mean.
The sky, after all, stops at nothing, so something
Has to be holding
our bodies
in its rich and timeless stables or else
we would fly away...
Pipefish
In the green
and purple weeds
called Zostera, loosely
swinging in the shallows,
I waded, I reached
my hands
in that most human
of gestures -- to find,
to see, to hold whatever it is that's there --
-- and what came up
wasn't much,
but it glittered
and struggled,
it had eyes, and a body
like a wand,
it had pouting lips.
No longer, all of it,
than any of my fingers,
it wanted
away from my strangeness,
it wanted
to go back
into that waving forest
so quick and wet...
Swoon (essay)
In a corner of this rented house a most astonishing adventure is going on. It is only the household of a common spider, a small, rather chaotic web half in shadow. Yet it burgeons with the ambition of a throne. She-- for the female that is always in sight-- has produced six egg sacs, and from three of them, so far, an uncountable number have spilled. Spilled is precisely the word, for the size and motions of these newborns are so meager that they appear at first utterly lifeless, as though the hour of the beginning had come and would not be deferred, and thrust them out, with or without their will, to cling in a dark skein of tangled threads...
... All the questions that the spider's curious life made me ask, I know I can find answered in some book of knowledge, of which there are many. But the palace of knowledge is different from the palace of discovery, in which I am, truly, a Copernicus. The world is not what I thought, but different, and more! I have seen it with my own eyes!
Some excerpts:
Humpbacks
There is, all around us, the country
Of original fire.
You know what I mean.
The sky, after all, stops at nothing, so something
Has to be holding
our bodies
in its rich and timeless stables or else
we would fly away...
Pipefish
In the green
and purple weeds
called Zostera, loosely
swinging in the shallows,
I waded, I reached
my hands
in that most human
of gestures -- to find,
to see, to hold whatever it is that's there --
-- and what came up
wasn't much,
but it glittered
and struggled,
it had eyes, and a body
like a wand,
it had pouting lips.
No longer, all of it,
than any of my fingers,
it wanted
away from my strangeness,
it wanted
to go back
into that waving forest
so quick and wet...
Swoon (essay)
In a corner of this rented house a most astonishing adventure is going on. It is only the household of a common spider, a small, rather chaotic web half in shadow. Yet it burgeons with the ambition of a throne. She-- for the female that is always in sight-- has produced six egg sacs, and from three of them, so far, an uncountable number have spilled. Spilled is precisely the word, for the size and motions of these newborns are so meager that they appear at first utterly lifeless, as though the hour of the beginning had come and would not be deferred, and thrust them out, with or without their will, to cling in a dark skein of tangled threads...
... All the questions that the spider's curious life made me ask, I know I can find answered in some book of knowledge, of which there are many. But the palace of knowledge is different from the palace of discovery, in which I am, truly, a Copernicus. The world is not what I thought, but different, and more! I have seen it with my own eyes!
February 16, 2019
In this poetic Noah’s Ark, there are poems about alligators, coyotes, deer, dolphins, dogs, hermit crabs, insects, minks, moles, mollusks, opossums, otters, pipefish, porcupines, snakes, toads, turtles, whales, and the natural world as well as several bears. Ten new poems are included along with two brief essays and thirty-five older poems: it’s nice to have them together in one place.
“But every morning on the wide shore/I pass what is perfect and shining/to look for the whelks, whose edges/ have rubbed so long against the world/they have snapped and crumbled—/they have almost vanished,/with the last relinquishing/ of their unrepeatable energy,/back into everything else....Not often, / but now and again there’s a moment/when the heart cries aloud:/ yes, I am willing to be/ that wild darkness,/ that long, blue body of light.” Whelks
“But every morning on the wide shore/I pass what is perfect and shining/to look for the whelks, whose edges/ have rubbed so long against the world/they have snapped and crumbled—/they have almost vanished,/with the last relinquishing/ of their unrepeatable energy,/back into everything else....Not often, / but now and again there’s a moment/when the heart cries aloud:/ yes, I am willing to be/ that wild darkness,/ that long, blue body of light.” Whelks
September 17, 2021
Mark gave this to me many years ago, and for some reason I thought it was more "essays" than "poems" and didn't read it. But when I started reading Oliver's A Poetry Handbook, I of course wanted to read her poetry, so I finally picked it up.
I heard a lot of quote's of the last 2 lines from "The Summer Day" ("Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life") when Oliver died in 2019, and I liked that poem, but I especially liked the poems that described scenes familiar to me, to my backyard and house (even the snake poems!). The Percy poems in her and the essay about a spider she found in her vacation home one summer I liked in particular.
I heard a lot of quote's of the last 2 lines from "The Summer Day" ("Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life") when Oliver died in 2019, and I liked that poem, but I especially liked the poems that described scenes familiar to me, to my backyard and house (even the snake poems!). The Percy poems in her and the essay about a spider she found in her vacation home one summer I liked in particular.
November 17, 2017
Awww, Mary Oliver's observation of nature humbles me. The collection of poems here includes one of my favorites - and the essay on the spider reminds me of just what I do here in my home. I have a spider spinning its web, and I just can't seem to sweep it away.
October 5, 2008
The last 10 poems about Percy, her dog, make the book a worthy buy! This is one I will go to again and again.
January 11, 2016
I definitely loved the Percy poems!
December 29, 2024
she always gets me. don't even start me on the poems about her sick dog, I canNOT.
April 4, 2022
Five A.M. in the Pinewoods
I’d seen
their hoofprints in the deep
needles and knew
they ended the long night
under the pines, walking
like two mute
and beautiful women toward
the deeper woods, so I
got up in the dark and
went there. They came
slowly down the hill
and looked at me sitting under
the blue trees, shyly
they stepped
closer and stared
from under their thick lashes and even
nibbled some damp
tassels of weeds. This
is not a poem about a dream,
though it could be.
This is a poem about the world
that is ours, or could be.
Finally
one of them—I swear it!—
would have come to my arms.
But the other
stamped sharp hoof in the
pine needles like
the tap of sanity,
and they went off together through
the trees. When I woke
I was alone,
I was thinking:
so this is how you swim inward,
so this is how you flow outward,
so this is how you pray.
Favourite poems: The Truro Bear,The Summer Day,Five A.M. in the Pinewoods
I’d seen
their hoofprints in the deep
needles and knew
they ended the long night
under the pines, walking
like two mute
and beautiful women toward
the deeper woods, so I
got up in the dark and
went there. They came
slowly down the hill
and looked at me sitting under
the blue trees, shyly
they stepped
closer and stared
from under their thick lashes and even
nibbled some damp
tassels of weeds. This
is not a poem about a dream,
though it could be.
This is a poem about the world
that is ours, or could be.
Finally
one of them—I swear it!—
would have come to my arms.
But the other
stamped sharp hoof in the
pine needles like
the tap of sanity,
and they went off together through
the trees. When I woke
I was alone,
I was thinking:
so this is how you swim inward,
so this is how you flow outward,
so this is how you pray.
Favourite poems: The Truro Bear,The Summer Day,Five A.M. in the Pinewoods
January 1, 2021
The Read Harder challenge includes a book of nature poetry, and I couldn’t think of a better way to start the new year than with a book by my favorite poet. Mary Oliver’s poetry is five stars to me, but this collection doesn’t have much that is new- it’s almost entirely poems I have in other books as well. I do, however, love to read the Percy poems collected in this way.
March 19, 2015
I've read this book as a break from Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. I smiled when I learned that I can't escape from Concord with this book as it also talks about our nature (flora and fauna). In fact, a line from Thoreau's Concord was mentioned by Mary Oliver in this book. I just kept on reading since I'm a nature lover—though not as avid as the two poets.
Truro is a simple book about our animal friends. What they do, how they get by, what they think and even what they say. Her poems are not complicated. They are pure, true to itself and 'eco-friendly'. Obviously, Oliver is a nature lover (I'm not sure if she's a natural historian) and admirer of words! Her words are gentle, pristine and compelling—just like how nature should be.
After reading this book, I asked myself, who are we in this world? We're part of nature yet we destroy it. We are nature yet we abuse it. If we are the highest life form in this world, why is it that we act so lowly—we have brains yet it is our "lower" animal friends who understand and know how to become a human being.
Truro is a simple book about our animal friends. What they do, how they get by, what they think and even what they say. Her poems are not complicated. They are pure, true to itself and 'eco-friendly'. Obviously, Oliver is a nature lover (I'm not sure if she's a natural historian) and admirer of words! Her words are gentle, pristine and compelling—just like how nature should be.
After reading this book, I asked myself, who are we in this world? We're part of nature yet we destroy it. We are nature yet we abuse it. If we are the highest life form in this world, why is it that we act so lowly—we have brains yet it is our "lower" animal friends who understand and know how to become a human being.
December 16, 2015
Black Snake
I startled a black snake: he
flew over the grass and hid his face
under a leaf, the rest of him in plain sight.
Little brother, often I've done the same.
Mary Oliver's The Truro Bear and Other Adventures; Poems and Essays taught me the simple pleasures of noticing.
Just noticing.
Listen, whatever it is you try
to do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you
like the dreams of your body,
its spirit
longing to fly while the dead-weight bones
toss their dark mane and hurry
back into the fields of glittering fire
where everything,
even the great whale,
throbs with song.
I startled a black snake: he
flew over the grass and hid his face
under a leaf, the rest of him in plain sight.
Little brother, often I've done the same.
Mary Oliver's The Truro Bear and Other Adventures; Poems and Essays taught me the simple pleasures of noticing.
Just noticing.
Listen, whatever it is you try
to do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you
like the dreams of your body,
its spirit
longing to fly while the dead-weight bones
toss their dark mane and hurry
back into the fields of glittering fire
where everything,
even the great whale,
throbs with song.
December 21, 2017
Mary Oliver's poetry lifts me, calms me, transports me to a place I've never been or to one I haven't been since a child ... and then shows me feelings I recognize but never quite knew how to express. As is to be expected, some poems will always be more resonant than others. Books of poetry aren't read like a novel. If you're racing through it, you're missing much of it. This book is anchored in her love and regard for animals. Their importance to the grand scheme of things is their own, of course, but we gain so much from our awareness of them, of nature.
March 12, 2011
This is a delightful collection of poems by Mary Oliver. For those of us who live in rural areas, her poetry reveals the reverence and joy of living surrounded by wildlife. In "Five A.M. in the Pinewoods" she describes her meeting with two deer. She concludes, "I was thinking:/so this is how you swim inward,/so this is how you flow outward,/so this is how you pray." She also includes 13 Percy poems about their new dog. These will bring a smile to any dog lover's face.
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