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West Wind
The New York Times has called Mary Oliver's poems "thoroughly convincing - as genuine, moving, and implausible as the first caressing breeze of spring." In this stunning collection of forty poems - nineteen previously unpublished - she writes of nature and love, of the way they transform over time. And the way they remain constant. And what did you think love would be like? A summer day? The brambles in their places, and the long stretches of mud? Flowers in every field, in every garden, with their soft beaks and their pastel shoulders? On one street after another, the litter ticks in the gutter. In one room after another, the lovers meet, quarrel, sicken, break apart, cry out. One or two leap from windows. Most simply lean, exhausted, their thin arms on the sill. They have done all they could. The golden eagle, that lives not far from here, has perhaps a thousand tiny feathers flowing from the back of its head, each one shaped like an infinitely small but perfect spear.
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
376 people are currently reading
1688 people want to read
About the author
Mary Oliver
104 books8,791 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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March 5, 2025
‘Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?’
Mary Oliver is a poet who always inspires, a poet who urges us to live life to the fullest. Yet, for Oliver, this isn’t about corporate success, about profits, about bank accounts, or really any metric that you could put on an excel spreadsheet and project onto a boardroom wall. For Oliver, living life is about the experiences we have being at inner peace and harmony with life, love, and the natural world. West Wind, Oliver’s collection from 1997, brings together forty of her poems—about half of them newly written for the collection and the others a sort of thematic ‘best of’—asks us to consider living life to the fullest as she muses on the interconnectedness of human life with the natural world. Oliver looks at how, like the seasons of nature, our lives move through our own sort of seasons and how through the passage of time we are confronted by our mortality yet also find ways to ascribe meaning to our finite existence. A gorgeous collection as always, while West Wind isn’t the strongest of Oliver volumes it is still a balm for the soul and glorious achievement. And for Oliver, to live life in harmony with nature, to be mindful of it and observe its wonders is achievement enough.
Have I not stood, amazed, as I consider
the perfection of the morning star
above the peaks of the houses, and the crowns of the trees
blue in the first light?
Do I not see how the trees tremble, as though
sheets of water flowed over them
though it is only wind, that common thing,
free to everyone, and everything?
Have I not thought, for years, what it would be
worthy to do, and then gone off, barefoot and with a silver pail,
to gather blueberries,
thus coming, as I think, upon a right answer?
—from Am I Not Among the Early Risers
Oliver’s words always spill over my heart like a spring breeze, like the sun rising up over the trees amidst ‘the quick wrist of early summer, / when everything was alive.’ She has such a knack for language that is always charming and enthralling. And across West Wind we are graced with her language in both poems and prose poems that often look at her relationship with language as much as it does the natural world.
Poetry is a sort of spiritual community for Oliver and her words help us unite, heal, and dive into introspection. Yet sometimes language gets in the way, she considers, or at least isn’t enough. ‘There is so much communication and understanding beneath and apart from the substantiations of language spoken or written down,’ she observes. For one, nature cannot talk to us through spoken language or written word, and for that we must write with our hearts and souls and not words to communicate. As she writes in Stars:
Here in my head, language
Keeps making its tiny noises
How can I hope to be friends
With the hard white stars
Whose flaring and hissing are not speech
But a pure radiance?
…
Listen, listen, I’m forever saying,
Listen to the river, to the hawk, to the hoof,
To the mockingbird, to the jack-in-the-pulpit—
then I come up with a few words, like a gift.
Even as now.
Even as harkness has remained the pure, deep darkness.
Even as the stars have twirled a little, while I stood here,
Looking up,
One hot sentence after another.
There is so much beyond words, yet she also acknowledges the great gift words can be. And with words has found a calling, a career, and shared them with us in a way that makes us and the world a tiny bit better with each poem. I love when Oliver stops and considers her own vocation, such as in Forty Years:
for forty years
the sheets of white paper have
passed under my hands and I have tried
to improve their peaceful
emptiness putting down
little curls little shafts
of letters words
little flames leaping
not one page
was less to me than fascinating
discursive full of cadence
its pale nerves hiding
in the curves of the Qs
behind the soldierly Hs
in the webbed feet of the Ws
forty years
and again this morning as always
I am stopped as the world comes back
wet and beautiful I am thinking
that language
is not even a river
is not a tree is not a green field
is not even a black ant traveling
briskly modestly
from day to day from one
golden page to another.
As the years pass by, Oliver begins to examine how the moments of life can be collected to consider them in terms of meaning, but also that each moment is another step towards an inevitable end. ‘Believe me these are not just words talking / This is my life, thinking of the darkness to follow.’ Death begins to cast a shadow over this collection, yet it is not a fearsome shadow but, like night is to day, just another part of the natural world for us to think about and enter without fear.
West Wind #2
You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life
toward it.
Mary Oliver is always a delight to read and West Wind is no exception. Each poem hits right in the heart and, as we read in amazement, hopefully remember to feel the same amazement for each breath we take, each sunrise we watch, each first star we may wish up, and feel lucky to have been here. Even if for a short while.
4/5
‘Light of the world, hold me.’
Mary Oliver is a poet who always inspires, a poet who urges us to live life to the fullest. Yet, for Oliver, this isn’t about corporate success, about profits, about bank accounts, or really any metric that you could put on an excel spreadsheet and project onto a boardroom wall. For Oliver, living life is about the experiences we have being at inner peace and harmony with life, love, and the natural world. West Wind, Oliver’s collection from 1997, brings together forty of her poems—about half of them newly written for the collection and the others a sort of thematic ‘best of’—asks us to consider living life to the fullest as she muses on the interconnectedness of human life with the natural world. Oliver looks at how, like the seasons of nature, our lives move through our own sort of seasons and how through the passage of time we are confronted by our mortality yet also find ways to ascribe meaning to our finite existence. A gorgeous collection as always, while West Wind isn’t the strongest of Oliver volumes it is still a balm for the soul and glorious achievement. And for Oliver, to live life in harmony with nature, to be mindful of it and observe its wonders is achievement enough.
Have I not stood, amazed, as I consider
the perfection of the morning star
above the peaks of the houses, and the crowns of the trees
blue in the first light?
Do I not see how the trees tremble, as though
sheets of water flowed over them
though it is only wind, that common thing,
free to everyone, and everything?
Have I not thought, for years, what it would be
worthy to do, and then gone off, barefoot and with a silver pail,
to gather blueberries,
thus coming, as I think, upon a right answer?
—from Am I Not Among the Early Risers
Oliver’s words always spill over my heart like a spring breeze, like the sun rising up over the trees amidst ‘the quick wrist of early summer, / when everything was alive.’ She has such a knack for language that is always charming and enthralling. And across West Wind we are graced with her language in both poems and prose poems that often look at her relationship with language as much as it does the natural world.
‘Language is, in other words, not necessary, but voluntary. If it were necessary, it would have stayed simple; it would not agitate our hearts with ever-present loveliness and ever-cresting ambiguity; it would not dream, on its long white bones, of turning into song.’
Poetry is a sort of spiritual community for Oliver and her words help us unite, heal, and dive into introspection. Yet sometimes language gets in the way, she considers, or at least isn’t enough. ‘There is so much communication and understanding beneath and apart from the substantiations of language spoken or written down,’ she observes. For one, nature cannot talk to us through spoken language or written word, and for that we must write with our hearts and souls and not words to communicate. As she writes in Stars:
Here in my head, language
Keeps making its tiny noises
How can I hope to be friends
With the hard white stars
Whose flaring and hissing are not speech
But a pure radiance?
…
Listen, listen, I’m forever saying,
Listen to the river, to the hawk, to the hoof,
To the mockingbird, to the jack-in-the-pulpit—
then I come up with a few words, like a gift.
Even as now.
Even as harkness has remained the pure, deep darkness.
Even as the stars have twirled a little, while I stood here,
Looking up,
One hot sentence after another.
There is so much beyond words, yet she also acknowledges the great gift words can be. And with words has found a calling, a career, and shared them with us in a way that makes us and the world a tiny bit better with each poem. I love when Oliver stops and considers her own vocation, such as in Forty Years:
for forty years
the sheets of white paper have
passed under my hands and I have tried
to improve their peaceful
emptiness putting down
little curls little shafts
of letters words
little flames leaping
not one page
was less to me than fascinating
discursive full of cadence
its pale nerves hiding
in the curves of the Qs
behind the soldierly Hs
in the webbed feet of the Ws
forty years
and again this morning as always
I am stopped as the world comes back
wet and beautiful I am thinking
that language
is not even a river
is not a tree is not a green field
is not even a black ant traveling
briskly modestly
from day to day from one
golden page to another.
As the years pass by, Oliver begins to examine how the moments of life can be collected to consider them in terms of meaning, but also that each moment is another step towards an inevitable end. ‘Believe me these are not just words talking / This is my life, thinking of the darkness to follow.’ Death begins to cast a shadow over this collection, yet it is not a fearsome shadow but, like night is to day, just another part of the natural world for us to think about and enter without fear.
West Wind #2
You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable
pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life
toward it.
Mary Oliver is always a delight to read and West Wind is no exception. Each poem hits right in the heart and, as we read in amazement, hopefully remember to feel the same amazement for each breath we take, each sunrise we watch, each first star we may wish up, and feel lucky to have been here. Even if for a short while.
4/5
‘Light of the world, hold me.’
August 4, 2020
[...] and stood on the shore, thinking—
and if you think
thinking is a mild exercise,
beware!
I mean, I was swimming for my life—
and I was thundering this way
and that way in my shirt of feathers—
and I could not resolve anything long enough
to become one thing
except this: the imaginer.
It was inescapable
as over and over it flung me,
without pause or mercy it flung me
to both sides of the beautiful water—
to both sides
of the knife
and if you think
thinking is a mild exercise,
beware!
I mean, I was swimming for my life—
and I was thundering this way
and that way in my shirt of feathers—
and I could not resolve anything long enough
to become one thing
except this: the imaginer.
It was inescapable
as over and over it flung me,
without pause or mercy it flung me
to both sides of the beautiful water—
to both sides
of the knife
February 17, 2020
https://leiturasdelaura.blogspot.com/...
SPOILER FREE
Mary Oliver é uma poetisa norte americana ganhadora de diversos prêmios (mas não um Nobel, uma pena) que viveu boa parte de sua vida de forma um tanto quanto reclusa. Infelizmente ela veio a falecer no ano passado, o que foi muito triste, porque suas poesias são uma delícia, e agora não temos mais poesias novas dela.
Seu tema favorito, como boa introvertida, é a natureza, a vida no campo, seu amor pelos cachorros e a vida simples. Se ela fosse mais contemporânea talvez incluísse as vantagens do Netflix, compras pela internet e pelo iFood para não falar com outras pessoas também.
Apesar da autora ter dado pouquíssimas entrevistas ao longo da vida, alguns fatos interessantes acabaram sendo revelados. A autora certa vez afirmou que sofreu abusos quando era criança, e que seu amor pela poesia e pela literatura veio como uma forma de escapar da sua família. A natureza, por estar disponível a ela quando jovem, veio a somar e, dessa forma, ela se tornou uma das poetisas mais lidas do país, sendo diversas vezes comparada com Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Claro que ninguém precisa saber nada disso para apreciar o trabalho de Mary Oliver, que fala por si só. Seus textos têm uma beleza que transcende essas questões pessoais, e a comparação com Emerson fica muito clara quando se lê o seu trabalho, que é primoroso.
Esse não foi meu primeiro livro da autora, e espero que não seja o último, pois aprecio muito suas poesias. Recomendo a leitura.
SPOILER FREE
Mary Oliver é uma poetisa norte americana ganhadora de diversos prêmios (mas não um Nobel, uma pena) que viveu boa parte de sua vida de forma um tanto quanto reclusa. Infelizmente ela veio a falecer no ano passado, o que foi muito triste, porque suas poesias são uma delícia, e agora não temos mais poesias novas dela.
Seu tema favorito, como boa introvertida, é a natureza, a vida no campo, seu amor pelos cachorros e a vida simples. Se ela fosse mais contemporânea talvez incluísse as vantagens do Netflix, compras pela internet e pelo iFood para não falar com outras pessoas também.
Apesar da autora ter dado pouquíssimas entrevistas ao longo da vida, alguns fatos interessantes acabaram sendo revelados. A autora certa vez afirmou que sofreu abusos quando era criança, e que seu amor pela poesia e pela literatura veio como uma forma de escapar da sua família. A natureza, por estar disponível a ela quando jovem, veio a somar e, dessa forma, ela se tornou uma das poetisas mais lidas do país, sendo diversas vezes comparada com Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Claro que ninguém precisa saber nada disso para apreciar o trabalho de Mary Oliver, que fala por si só. Seus textos têm uma beleza que transcende essas questões pessoais, e a comparação com Emerson fica muito clara quando se lê o seu trabalho, que é primoroso.
Esse não foi meu primeiro livro da autora, e espero que não seja o último, pois aprecio muito suas poesias. Recomendo a leitura.
November 28, 2011
This is a book of poems and prose poems. I read it twice. I will read it again. I dog-eared several favorites. As I go on rereading it, I'll probably dog-ear some more until I've dog-eared them all. Which one is the best? I think it would depend on one's mood. If one is in love, and thinking maybe that this love would last forever, even after death, then maybe it'd be the first poem of Part 2 which carries the book's title "West Wind." Right now, however, I like best this poem, "Am I Not Among the Early Risers," because even if what Mary Oliver is saying here is not true (and I'm not saying that such is the case!) I can't help but marvel at how it gives consolation to simple folks like me who live simple lives:
"Am I not among the early risers
and the long-distance walkers?
Have I not stood, amazed, as I consider
the perfection of the morning star
above the peaks of the houses, and the crowns of the trees
blue in the first light?
Do I not see how the trees tremble, as though
sheets of water flowed over them
though it is only wind, that common thing,
free to everyone, and everything?
Have I not thought, for years, what it would be
worthy to do, and then gone off, barefoot and with a silver pail,
to gather blueberries,
thus coming, as I think, upon a right answer?
What will ambition do for me that the fox, appearing suddenly
at the top of the field,
her eyes sharp and confident as she stared into mine,
has not already done?
What countries, what visitations,
what pomp
would satisfy me as thoroughly as Blackwater Woods
on a sun-filled morning, or, equally, in the rain?
Here is an amazement--once I was twenty years old and in
every motion of my body there was a delicious ease,
and in every motion of the green earth there was
a hint of paradise,
and now I am sixty years old, and it is the same.
Above the modest house and the palace--the same darkness.
Above the evil man and the just, the same stars.
Above the child who will recover and the child who will
not recover, the same energies roll forward,
from one tragedy to the next and from one foolishness to the next.
I bow down.
Have I not loved as though the beloved could vanish at any moment,
or become preoccupied, or whisper a name other than mine
in the stretched curvatures of lust, or over the dinner table?
Have I ever taken good fortune for granted?
Have I not, every spring, befriended the swarm that pours forth?
Have I not summoned the honey-man to come, to hurry,
to bring with him the white and comfortable hive?
And, while I waited, have I not leaned close, to see everything?
Have I not been stung as I watched their milling and gleaming,
and stung hard?
Have I not been ready always at the iron door,
not knowing to what country it opens--to death or to more life?
Have I ever said that the day was too hot or too cold
or the night too long and as black as oil anyway,
or the morning, washed blue and emptied entirely
of the second-rate, less than happiness
as I stepped down from the porch and set out along
the green paths of the world?"
But I am not saying I'm already 60 although with poems like this, and the senior citizen discount card I'll get when I reach that age, it wouldn't be too bad at all!
"Am I not among the early risers
and the long-distance walkers?
Have I not stood, amazed, as I consider
the perfection of the morning star
above the peaks of the houses, and the crowns of the trees
blue in the first light?
Do I not see how the trees tremble, as though
sheets of water flowed over them
though it is only wind, that common thing,
free to everyone, and everything?
Have I not thought, for years, what it would be
worthy to do, and then gone off, barefoot and with a silver pail,
to gather blueberries,
thus coming, as I think, upon a right answer?
What will ambition do for me that the fox, appearing suddenly
at the top of the field,
her eyes sharp and confident as she stared into mine,
has not already done?
What countries, what visitations,
what pomp
would satisfy me as thoroughly as Blackwater Woods
on a sun-filled morning, or, equally, in the rain?
Here is an amazement--once I was twenty years old and in
every motion of my body there was a delicious ease,
and in every motion of the green earth there was
a hint of paradise,
and now I am sixty years old, and it is the same.
Above the modest house and the palace--the same darkness.
Above the evil man and the just, the same stars.
Above the child who will recover and the child who will
not recover, the same energies roll forward,
from one tragedy to the next and from one foolishness to the next.
I bow down.
Have I not loved as though the beloved could vanish at any moment,
or become preoccupied, or whisper a name other than mine
in the stretched curvatures of lust, or over the dinner table?
Have I ever taken good fortune for granted?
Have I not, every spring, befriended the swarm that pours forth?
Have I not summoned the honey-man to come, to hurry,
to bring with him the white and comfortable hive?
And, while I waited, have I not leaned close, to see everything?
Have I not been stung as I watched their milling and gleaming,
and stung hard?
Have I not been ready always at the iron door,
not knowing to what country it opens--to death or to more life?
Have I ever said that the day was too hot or too cold
or the night too long and as black as oil anyway,
or the morning, washed blue and emptied entirely
of the second-rate, less than happiness
as I stepped down from the porch and set out along
the green paths of the world?"
But I am not saying I'm already 60 although with poems like this, and the senior citizen discount card I'll get when I reach that age, it wouldn't be too bad at all!
July 9, 2020
"Language is, in other words, not necessary, but voluntary. If it were necessary, it would have stayed simple; it would not agitate our hearts with ever-present loveliness and ever-cresting ambiguity; it would not dream, on its long white bones, of turning into song."
Making my way through her work! Beautiful as always
Making my way through her work! Beautiful as always
May 9, 2019
This is a short book of poems and prose poems by Oliver and as always, her writing is tender, sensitive and experimental without ever being obscure!
August 11, 2013
Amazement (n.)
1590s, "mental stupefaction," early use of the Latin suffix with a native verb, from amaze + -ment. Meaning "overwhelming wonder" is c.1600.
I haven't read poetry in a long time but maybe that's a mistake because reading these poems in one sitting in the middle of the night was something else. They are truly stupefying. Not since Mark Strand or Frank O'Hara or Philip Levine had I felt language and life so vitally entwined. Rarely have I felt the primal energy and beauty of life and nature expressed in such radical and incandescent language.
Each poem is a world in itself which slowly bewitches with its trembling details and then zooms in on the reader with an overpowering urgency. The last lines in these poems are often haunting questions and existential summons that shakes one to the core. Mary Oliver wants us to be inside her words and outside in the world at the same time and her mad dash between the two is one hell of a shooting star.
1590s, "mental stupefaction," early use of the Latin suffix with a native verb, from amaze + -ment. Meaning "overwhelming wonder" is c.1600.
I haven't read poetry in a long time but maybe that's a mistake because reading these poems in one sitting in the middle of the night was something else. They are truly stupefying. Not since Mark Strand or Frank O'Hara or Philip Levine had I felt language and life so vitally entwined. Rarely have I felt the primal energy and beauty of life and nature expressed in such radical and incandescent language.
Each poem is a world in itself which slowly bewitches with its trembling details and then zooms in on the reader with an overpowering urgency. The last lines in these poems are often haunting questions and existential summons that shakes one to the core. Mary Oliver wants us to be inside her words and outside in the world at the same time and her mad dash between the two is one hell of a shooting star.
February 26, 2024
perfect collection to dive into on what feels like the first day of spring. her poems are just magical. my faves were "black oaks", "three songs", "shelley", "ruin, tree, thunder, and lightning" and "the osprey".
June 9, 2019
miss mary oliver it is sunday and i live by your words. thank you for making me pay attention, for opening my eyes to the world with each poem. outside the sky has taken the color of gold while the pink clouds quietly float around, i open the window to listen to the wind, to the earth existing.
August 28, 2020
"Do you think this world is only an entertainment for you?
Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides
with perfect courtesy, to let you in!
***
Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
While the soul, after all, is only a window, and the opening of the window no more difficult than the wakening from a little sleep."
Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides
with perfect courtesy, to let you in!
***
Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
While the soul, after all, is only a window, and the opening of the window no more difficult than the wakening from a little sleep."
February 27, 2022
listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
April 24, 2024
3.5/5
Mary Oliver writes nature like no one else ever
Mary Oliver writes nature like no one else ever
April 14, 2019
"Language is, in other words, not necessary, but voluntary. If it were necessary, it would have stayed simple; it would not agitate our hearts with ever-present loveliness and ever-cresting ambiguity; it would not dream, on it's long white bones, of turning into song."
This book was my first introduction to Mary Oliver, in college many years ago, in a class on the literature of mindfulness. I remember being in awe of her then. That hasn't changed. Revisiting this now was a wonderful experience. There is so much to savor about this collection. Pretty much perfect.
This book was my first introduction to Mary Oliver, in college many years ago, in a class on the literature of mindfulness. I remember being in awe of her then. That hasn't changed. Revisiting this now was a wonderful experience. There is so much to savor about this collection. Pretty much perfect.
July 10, 2016
I usually love Mary Oliver’s poems and gave American Primitive five stars. This collection didn’t engage me as much. For one thing, I’m not a big fan of prose poems (there were several). For another, instead of letting nature pull us through the poems, Oliver repeatedly goes off into ars poetica, reminding us she’s going home to write the poem. Duh! The result is self-conscious writing that takes us out of the woods, where I want to stay.
Nevertheless, there are several poems that impressed me. “Black Oaks” appealed to me even though she did talk about her craft rather than her view. It ends:
“And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists
of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money,
I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.”
“The Dog Has Run Off Again” is particularly charming. She wonders: “who am I to summon his hard and happy body…to come back to walk by my side, obedient.” In another poem about her dogs, “So,” she rescues a mouse her dogs have trapped. She picked it up in her hands and
“…it turned
on the blank face
of my thumb…”
I’m never going to look at my thumb the same way again.
Nevertheless, there are several poems that impressed me. “Black Oaks” appealed to me even though she did talk about her craft rather than her view. It ends:
“And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists
of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money,
I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.”
“The Dog Has Run Off Again” is particularly charming. She wonders: “who am I to summon his hard and happy body…to come back to walk by my side, obedient.” In another poem about her dogs, “So,” she rescues a mouse her dogs have trapped. She picked it up in her hands and
“…it turned
on the blank face
of my thumb…”
I’m never going to look at my thumb the same way again.
November 16, 2017
The Dog Has Run Off Again
and I should start shouting his name
and clapping my hands,
but it has been raining all night
and the narrow creek has risen
is a tawny turbulence is rushing along
over the mossy stones
is surging forward
with a sweet loopy music
and therefore I don't want to entangle it
with my own voice
calling summoning
my little dog to hurry back
look the sunlight and the shadows are chasing each other
listen how the wind swirls and leaps and dives up and down
who am I to summon his hard and happy body
his four white feet that love to wheel and pedal
through the dark leaves
to come back to walk by my side, obedient.
That Sweet Flute John Clare
That sweet flute John Clare;
that broken branch Eddy Whitman;
Christopher Smart, in the press of blazing electricity;
my uncle the suicide;
Woolf on her way to the river;
Wolf, of the sorrowful songs;
Swift, impenetrable murk of Dublin;
Schumann, climbing the bridge, leaping into the Rhine;
Ruskin, Cowper;
Poe, rambling in the gloom-bins of Baltimore and Richmond—
light of the world, hold me.
Sand Dabs, Three
Six black ibis
step through the black and mossy panels
of summer water.
Six times
I sigh with delight.
***
Keep looking.
***
The way a muskrat
in the snick of its teeth can carry
long branches of leaves.
***
Small hawks
cleaning their beaks
in the sun.
***
If you think daylight is just daylight
then it is just daylight.
***
Believe me these are not just words talking.
This is my life, thinking of the darkness to follow.
***
Keep looking.
***
The fox: his barking, in god's darkness, as of a little dog.
The flounce of his teeth.
***
Every morning
all those pink and green doors
into the sea.
and I should start shouting his name
and clapping my hands,
but it has been raining all night
and the narrow creek has risen
is a tawny turbulence is rushing along
over the mossy stones
is surging forward
with a sweet loopy music
and therefore I don't want to entangle it
with my own voice
calling summoning
my little dog to hurry back
look the sunlight and the shadows are chasing each other
listen how the wind swirls and leaps and dives up and down
who am I to summon his hard and happy body
his four white feet that love to wheel and pedal
through the dark leaves
to come back to walk by my side, obedient.
That Sweet Flute John Clare
That sweet flute John Clare;
that broken branch Eddy Whitman;
Christopher Smart, in the press of blazing electricity;
my uncle the suicide;
Woolf on her way to the river;
Wolf, of the sorrowful songs;
Swift, impenetrable murk of Dublin;
Schumann, climbing the bridge, leaping into the Rhine;
Ruskin, Cowper;
Poe, rambling in the gloom-bins of Baltimore and Richmond—
light of the world, hold me.
Sand Dabs, Three
Six black ibis
step through the black and mossy panels
of summer water.
Six times
I sigh with delight.
***
Keep looking.
***
The way a muskrat
in the snick of its teeth can carry
long branches of leaves.
***
Small hawks
cleaning their beaks
in the sun.
***
If you think daylight is just daylight
then it is just daylight.
***
Believe me these are not just words talking.
This is my life, thinking of the darkness to follow.
***
Keep looking.
***
The fox: his barking, in god's darkness, as of a little dog.
The flounce of his teeth.
***
Every morning
all those pink and green doors
into the sea.
July 1, 2021
This was pretty relaxing to read. I like emerging myself in poems about nature☺️
May 6, 2025
4.5 stars!
I just think Mary Oliver gets it more than most. She teaches me so much with every poem! This collection was too short, I want more!
“Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”
Some of my favorites from this set -
Am I Not Among the Early Risers
Stars
West Wind
And so many good Summer poems! The perfect time of year to read poetry and anticipate beauty. Finished in a day.
I just think Mary Oliver gets it more than most. She teaches me so much with every poem! This collection was too short, I want more!
“Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”
Some of my favorites from this set -
Am I Not Among the Early Risers
Stars
West Wind
And so many good Summer poems! The perfect time of year to read poetry and anticipate beauty. Finished in a day.
May 16, 2022
“For this is my skill—I am capable of pondering the most detailed knowledge, and the most fastened-up, impenetrable mystery, at the same time.”
Maybe one of the reasons I love Mary Oliver.
Maybe one of the reasons I love Mary Oliver.
January 13, 2019
Another re-read. She is just good.
September 29, 2021
“…in my room after such disturbance I sit, smiling.
I pick up a pencil, I put it down, I pick it up again.
I am thinking of you.
I am always thinking of you.”
I’m changing my rating to five stars because I cannot stop thinking about these poems!!!
I pick up a pencil, I put it down, I pick it up again.
I am thinking of you.
I am always thinking of you.”
I’m changing my rating to five stars because I cannot stop thinking about these poems!!!
Read
June 5, 2022well what a strange surprise to randomly open this book that i got on a whim at that booksale and open right to my favorite mary oliver poem that ive never been able to find what collection its part of and wow i opened right to it . anyways took that as a sign to sit down and read this and yeah i mean its mary oliver what more is there to say i smiled i sobbed i wanna go sit in the grass love u mary <3
December 30, 2023
Love Mary Oliver's focus on nature. Every time there was a word I didn't recognize it was always a bird species. Thank you for teaching me new bird species Mary Oliver.
January 23, 2024
Black Oaks is my new mantra ♡
November 20, 2024
Not the most consistent Mary Oliver collection, but still an easy 5 stars.
January 25, 2022
This poetry collection which focuses on nature and love and how, while they can change overtime, remain constant, is a prime example of how no one can cause visceral reactions quite like Mary Oliver.
Truly the greatest of all time.
Truly the greatest of all time.
June 3, 2019
thank you mary oliver for widening my world with every word and poem! this was as beautiful and moving as expected and i cried reading "stars" and felt very small
January 2, 2024
Playful structure and syntax in her lines made this Mary Oliver book of poetry delightful. One of my favorites so far.
July 25, 2022
Mary Oliver might be one of my new favorite poets! I found her style to be very accessible without sacrificing complexity. Each poem inspired a reread. This book in particular followed themes of nature (and how individuals interact with nature), love, and being a writer. Many of the ideas were relatable (especially ones about writing and the struggle to capture real life into words) and others inspired me to see things from another perspective.
Some of my favorites:
-Stars
-Three Songs (especially parts II and III; we get some beautiful lines about the power of language)
-Rain, Tree, Thunder and Lightning
-The Rapture
-Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith
-Dogs (reminded me of my dog hehe)
-West Wind 1, 3, 5
Honorable mentions go to "Fox" for the fantastic last three lines, "At the Shore" for the way it sounds when you read it aloud, and "At the Great Pond" for capturing a writerly moment I could never explain. Did I just list half of the poems in this book as my favorites? Maybe haha
Some of my favorites:
-Stars
-Three Songs (especially parts II and III; we get some beautiful lines about the power of language)
-Rain, Tree, Thunder and Lightning
-The Rapture
-Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith
-Dogs (reminded me of my dog hehe)
-West Wind 1, 3, 5
Honorable mentions go to "Fox" for the fantastic last three lines, "At the Shore" for the way it sounds when you read it aloud, and "At the Great Pond" for capturing a writerly moment I could never explain. Did I just list half of the poems in this book as my favorites? Maybe haha
March 19, 2013
For the poems I'd already met, and liked, and that felt like old friends - I much enjoyed this. For the rest of it? I'd rather be outside than reading about the world out there; I've never been much good with poetry; Oliver's good with words and the weight of the world hanging on every wind, sure, but Kingsolver and Dillard say more with just as few words.
[3 stars for those familiar faces.]
[3 stars for those familiar faces.]
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