This is the first day my bed has seemed confining so I finally accepted the invitation to sit in that lonely chair. I brought along my Mary Oliver to keep me company. I've discovered a quandary though.
When I read her poetry something stirs in me. Beauty. Awe. Inspiration. And these stirred feelings makes me want to shout the poem out my balcony to the giggling kids in the pool below, or to lay under the stars on a rooftop leaning on a lovers chest reciting lines in wispy tones, or to cuddle with Katy under layers of blankets during a recent snow storm interrupting her from her own far away adventures with lines about rumpled seas and slumped purses of lilies.
Poetry just needs to be shared. Shared with someone who will flop back into their chair after hearing it and just be awed. Someone who after moments of silence whispers, "Read it again." Someone who will ask reflectively what do you think she means when she says "the power of things?"
So, while I love reading Mary under the circle of light in this comfy chair it reminds me at the same time of loneliness. Of my Katy who is far away and busy with the bustle of being a newly wed graduate student who makes damn good shots of espresso while in her mind writing the paper about family orgins due too soon.
Poetry needs to be shared. So I'll compromise and share this poem with you even though the presentation is on a inanimate flat screen. Because I know those eyes that are processing the letters, the combination of words, the flow of the thoughts is connected to a heart which will lap up these words that to me are so beautiful and so true.
A Certain Sharpness in the Morning Air
By Mary Oliver
By Mary Oliver
In the morning
it shuffles, unhurried,
across the wet fields
in its black slippers,
in its coal-colored coat
with the white stripe like a river
running down its spine--
a glossy animal with a quick temper
and two bulbs of such diatribe under its tail
that when I see it I pray
not to be noticed--
not to be struck
by the flat boards of its anger--
for the whole haul of its smell
is unendurable--
like tragedy
that can't be borne,
like death
that has to be buried, or burned--
but a little of it is another story--
for it's true, isn't it,
in our world,
that the petals pooled with nectar, and the polished thorns
are a single thing--
that even the purest light, lacking the robe of darkness,
would be without expression--
that love itself, without it's pain, would be
no more than a shruggable comfort.
Lately, I have noticed, when the skunk's temper has tilted
in the distance,
and the acids are floating everywhere,
and I am touched, it is all, even in my nostrils and my throat
as the brushing of thorns;
and I stand there
thinking of the old, wild life of the fields, when, as I remember it,
I was shaggy, and beautiful,
like the rose.
This poem is comforting to me right now as I think about the guy I'm dating, living in Nigeria, and really any future choice I make. I always call it the beauty and the beast of life. This poem words thoughts I've been thinking about how every place I live, every job I have, every person my life entangles with, every different season of my life will have puddles of nectar in petals and the polished thorns. Because Mary is right. They are a single thing. And it's just life. There will be beautiful sunsets because of the pollution in the air. There will be sweet gifts of freshly potted plants after the argument. There will be a crowd of loving kids surrounding you after you've missed school of six days. There will be a new deeper appreciation for freedom after living in confinements of Lagos. The bad is what makes the good so good. Can we define one without the other?
it shuffles, unhurried,
across the wet fields
in its black slippers,
in its coal-colored coat
with the white stripe like a river
running down its spine--
a glossy animal with a quick temper
and two bulbs of such diatribe under its tail
that when I see it I pray
not to be noticed--
not to be struck
by the flat boards of its anger--
for the whole haul of its smell
is unendurable--
like tragedy
that can't be borne,
like death
that has to be buried, or burned--
but a little of it is another story--
for it's true, isn't it,
in our world,
that the petals pooled with nectar, and the polished thorns
are a single thing--
that even the purest light, lacking the robe of darkness,
would be without expression--
that love itself, without it's pain, would be
no more than a shruggable comfort.
Lately, I have noticed, when the skunk's temper has tilted
in the distance,
and the acids are floating everywhere,
and I am touched, it is all, even in my nostrils and my throat
as the brushing of thorns;
and I stand there
thinking of the old, wild life of the fields, when, as I remember it,
I was shaggy, and beautiful,
like the rose.
This poem is comforting to me right now as I think about the guy I'm dating, living in Nigeria, and really any future choice I make. I always call it the beauty and the beast of life. This poem words thoughts I've been thinking about how every place I live, every job I have, every person my life entangles with, every different season of my life will have puddles of nectar in petals and the polished thorns. Because Mary is right. They are a single thing. And it's just life. There will be beautiful sunsets because of the pollution in the air. There will be sweet gifts of freshly potted plants after the argument. There will be a crowd of loving kids surrounding you after you've missed school of six days. There will be a new deeper appreciation for freedom after living in confinements of Lagos. The bad is what makes the good so good. Can we define one without the other?
1 comment:
stunning...petals and thorns. you are such a treasure my dear.
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