By Mary Oliver
“Joy isn't really made to be a crumb,” writes Mary Oliver, and positively pleasure abounds in her new booklet of poetry and prose poems. Swan, her 20th quantity, exhibits us that, notwithstanding we can be “made out of the airborne dirt and dust of stars,” we're of the area she captures the following so vividly. Swan is Oliver’s tribute to “the mortal manner” of needing and residing on the earth, to which the poet is well known for having continually been “totally loyal.”
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Extra info for Swan: Poems and Prose Poems
What percentage extra foxes has he made for the earth? Many, many. what percentage rabbits has he stuck to this point? Many, many, many. This doesn’t sound vitally important. What’s of value? Scalping mountains or fishing for oil? i'd argue approximately that. Ah, you've by no means heard of the meek and what's to turn into of them? What’s meek approximately consuming rabbits? It’s greater than what’s occurring to the mountains and the sea. you recognize, there’s just one factor to assert. i believe you’re a bit loopy. I thank the Lord. How Heron Comes it's a negligence of the brain to not observe how at nightfall heron involves the pond and stands there in his dying gowns, ideal servant of the procedure, hungry, his eyes jam-packed with realization, his wings natural mild. while whilst it’s over, it’s over, and we don’t recognize any folks, what occurs then. So I try out to not pass over whatever. i feel, in my entire existence, i haven't neglected the whole moon or the slipper of its coming again. Or, a kiss. good, sure, particularly a kiss. bushes Heaven understands what number bushes I climbed whilst my physique used to be nonetheless within the hiking method, how many afternoons, particularly windy ones, I sat perched on a limb that rose and fell with each invisible blow. each one tree used to be a eco-friendly send within the wind-waves, each department a mast, each leafy peak a happiness that got here with no even attempting. i used to be that alive and limber. Now I stroll lower than them— cool, cherished: the loved ones of such tall, type sisters. on your fingers The puppy, the donkey, definitely they understand they're alive. Who may argue another way? yet now, after years of attention, i get past that. What in regards to the sunflowers? What approximately the tulips, and the pines? hear, all you need to do is begin and there’ll be no preventing. What approximately mountains? What approximately water slipping over the rocks? And, talking of stones, what approximately the children you could carry on your arms, their heartbeats so mystery, so hidden it may well take years sooner than, eventually, you listen them? I personal a home I personal a home, small yet cozy. In it's a mattress, a table, a kitchen, a closet, a phone. And so forth—you understand the way it is: issues gather. outdoors the summer time clouds are drifting through, them all with imprecise and lovely faces. And there are the pines that bush out highly spiced and impressive, even though they don't even comprehend their names. and there's the mockingbird; many times he rises from his thorn-tree and dances—he truly dances, within the air. And there are days I want I owned not anything, just like the grass. I nervous I apprehensive much. Will the backyard develop, will the rivers move within the correct course, will the earth flip because it used to be taught, and if now not, how shall I right it? used to be I correct, used to be I improper, will I be forgiven, am i able to do higher? Will I ever manage to sing, even the sparrows can do it and i'm, good, hopeless. Is my eyesight fading or am I simply imagining it, am I going to get rheumatism, lockjaw, dementia? ultimately I observed that troubling had come to not anything. And gave it up. And took my previous physique and went out into the morning, and sang.