“Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”
Mary Oliver, “Why I Wake Early”
It was early in the morning as I sat in my “writing room,” Sam left well before dawn for fishing. Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” played softly in the background while the kittens batted one another and scurried under chair and table playing chase. Harry paused for a moment by the door with a mournful meow, asking to go outside. In five minutes, he’d be back inside as the air was already hot and thick as mayonnaise. Opening the door, I heard the rising sound of cicadas. The sound rises and falls like ocean waves until it stops altogether.
I googled decibels of cicadas (knowing you can google anything) and found the decibel level to be 120, which is higher than that of an emergency vehicle siren. The Prairie is not always quiet.
Noting the sights and sounds reminded me of an email I received last week from B.J. Smith. She suggested the poetry of Mary Oliver.
“She writes of nature,” B.J. said. “If you don’t already know her, I think you would enjoy her writings.”
I answered B.J. and googled Mary Oliver.
Mary Oliver is a renowned poet with a sack-full of awards including a 1984 Pulitzer Prize. She celebrates her 82nd birthday in September. Approximately 30-odd books were listed on Barnes & Noble, many containing at least 200 poems. I heard tell of another book launch in the fall.
Wiki website described her “clear and poignant observances of the natural world,” and herself an avid walker. I loved that she carries a 3-by-5-inch hand-sewn notebook for recording her observations and thoughts. I started to feel a heart connection with Mary Oliver as I have always loved handmade books and have constructed a few. She has also been known to stick pencils in hiding places on her frequent trails.
Quoting Miss Oliver, “When things are going well, you know, the walk does not get rapid or get anywhere; I finally just stop and write. That’s a successful walk.”
I then hurried to my public library where I found two of Miss Oliver’s books: “New and Selected Poems” (1992) and “What Do We Know” (2002). I read them both before night’s end.
Here is a favorite titled “Landscape”:
“Isn’t it plain the sheets of moss, except that they have no tongues, could lecture all day if they wanted about spiritual patience?
Isn’t it clear the black oaks along the path are standing as though they were the most fragile of flowers?
Every morning, I walk like this around the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart ever close, I am as good as dead.
Every morning, so far, I’m alive. And now the crows break off from the rest of the darkness and burst up into the sky – as though
All night they had thought of what they would like their lives to be, and imagined their strong, thick wings.”
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