Meeting Mary Oliver

Do you ever read something by an author you've never heard of and think- "Where have you been all my life?!" I had a moment like that last night. I was looking at Pinterest... snicker if you will, I don't watch television or play video games and I find fantastic recipes and beautiful words there. Self-justification over with, I was on Pinterest and a poem came up. I scanned it. I read it. I reread it. I pinned it. Hoards more poems by this same person came up. I loved every one of them. I had to create a new board just to hold all the poems that I found and wanted to read over and over again.

Mary Oliver, I said, who is this Mary Oliver? Pridefulness replied that she must be someone young and new that was just now making her mark, that was why I had never heard of her. I looked her up. Mary Oliver is 81 years old now. And she has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

Suddenly I felt cheated, left in the cold. Couldn't someone have told me? Maybe shared a poem? Offered a volume of work? How could I have missed this woman in my life? I wanted to tell her- I just met you, but I love you. The beautiful thing about these moments is that it lights a flame of interest, a fire of inspiration. I now want to go to the library and check out everything she has ever written. I want to sleep with it under my pillow so when I dream I think of her words and when I wake I remember them.

Then I read more and stopped cold. There, in the poem When Death Comes, were words that I written in my notebook in middle school to keep close to me. The same words got copied in a notebook for high school so I could memorize them. I had met Mary Oliver.

"When I die, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms."

Not to be morbid, but even at that age I thought the words would be a perfect epitaph. Never did I know that they were only part of a larger poem, a mere piece that is all the more beautiful when taken with the whole.

Well, enough of rhapsodizing, I should let you decide for yourself. You may not care for my new love, and that's fine. The thing about poetry, about all writing, is that it doesn't appeal to everyone. And sometimes it doesn't strike you at first, but with passing time it can touch you like the hand of a friend you have yet to meet.

Dear Reader, meet Mary Oliver...

When Death Comes
by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from
his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes 
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity,
wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

 and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement. 
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I made of my life something particular, and
real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.


And just one more. It is Ms. Oliver's poems about nature that move me most. Here is a short one.

How I go to the Woods
by Mary Oliver

Ordinarily I go to
the woods alone,
with not a single
friend, for they are
all smilers and
talkers and
therefore
unsuitable.

I don't really want
to be witnessed
talking to the 
catbirds or
hugging the old
black oak tree. I
have my way of
praying, a you no
doubt have yours.

...if you have ever
gone to the woods
with me, I must
love you very
much.

So, what do you think of my new friend? I am delighted with her and intend to find a copy of her words to have of my own. Till then I will hunt them here and there, and perhaps share them with you, Dear Reader. What about a decision to share a poem every week? Perhaps a Mary Monday! It's a deal. From now on I will try to post a Mary Oliver poem (or other poet I can't resist sharing) on Mondays. 

Hold me to it! And in the meantime, look up some poetry you admired as a youth. Reading a whole book takes large chunks of time, but a poem can be quickly savored between folding sheets and washing dishes, between the picking up and the putting down.

Find one to savor.