A Poem

I have the book of poetry that contains the poem you can read below, but I had forgotten about it until tonight when my friend Patricia (Improv Wisdom) sent me a copy. This is one of the joys of poetry and friends who love poetry. Even if it is a poem I know, love and have memorized, when I receive a copy by email or postal mail my heart gives a little leap of recognition, a bit like the leap of joy that happens when a good friend arrives at the door.

Today we spent the day at a friend's beautiful lakeside cottage, about 45 minutes from Ottawa. The seven hour outing felt like an entire holiday that included a ferry trip across the Ottawa River to Quebec, past fields of Queen Anne's Lace as in the photo, a tiny, twisty, gravel winding road through the woods, and the arrival at a sun-filled and soulful paradise for a few hours of enchantment, refreshment and friendly companionship.

It was a place where the magic of the following poem could have happened.

The Place I Want To Get Back To

by Mary Oliver

is where
in the pinewoods
  in the moments between
the darkness

and first light
two deer
  came walking down the hill
and when they saw me

they said to each other, okay,
this one is okay,
  let's see who she is
and why she is sitting

on the ground like that,
so quiet, as if
  asleep, or in a dream,
but, anyway, harmless;

and so they came
on their slender legs
  and gazed upon me
not unlike the way

I go out to the dunes and look
and look and look
  into the faces of the flowers;
and then one of them leaned forward

and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
bring to me that could exceed
  that brief moment?
For twenty years

I have gone every day to the same woods,
not waiting, exactly, just lingering.
  Such gifts, bestowed,
can't be repeated.

If you want to talk about this
come to visit. I live in the house
  near the corner, which I have named
Gratitude.

"The Place I Want To Get Back To" by Mary Oliver, from Thirst

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Teri and the cats of Furrydance]

...a house named Gratitude. How simple and full that feels to say out loud.

[Patricia Ludwick]

Ah, who could resist such an invitation to share a poem? Blessed Mary Oliver: my sister went to a concert hall in Seattle to hear her read, and the entire audience, packed into the Bena Roya Hall, stood and applauded when she walked on stage - gratitude!!!

and here's Li-Young Lee, deeply grateful for the miracle of summer fruit.

From Blossoms

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

Li-Young Lee (1957 - )

[Leah-Ariadne Ray]

I am grateful for so many things in this life, not least of them the poetry of Mary Oliver and the other souls she touches as she touches mine. Thank you for posting this!

Leah-Ariadne