Poeticous Logo
it
English Español Français Italiano
Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver

Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
 
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
 
and fasten themselves to the high branches—
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
 
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
 
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it
 
the thorn
that is heavier than lead—
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging—
 
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted—
 
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
 
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

from Dream Work (1986)

#AmericanWriters

2
5
Piaciuto o affrontato da...
Chactas Maria Do Céu Pires Costa Marianela Montesinos Ivan Glytov N. W. Cory Garcia Isaiah Carter
Altre opere di Mary Oliver...
Five A.M. in the Pinewoods

I’d seen their hoofprints in the deep needles and knew they ended the long night under the pines, walking
 3
 6
A Morning by the Pond, by Gustav Klimt
At Blackwater Pond

At Blackwater Pond the tossed wat… after a night of rain. I dip my cupped hands. I drink a long time. It tastes like stone, leaves, fire. It falls…
 5
Messenger

My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hum… equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there t… Here the clam deep in the speckled…
 1
 12
Almond blossom, by Vincent van Gogh
White Flowers

Last night in the fields I lay down in the darkness to think about death, but instead I fell asleep,
 1
 11
Many Miles

The feet of the heron, under those bamboo stems, hold the blue body, the great beak above the shallows
 2
A Meeting

She steps into the dark swamp where the long wait ends. The secret slippery package drops to the weeds. She leans her long neck and tongue…
 2
Humpbacks

There is, all around us, this country of original fire. You know what I mean. The sky, after all, stops at nothi…
 1
Twilight Setting in a Wood near Iselingen Manor, by P. C. Skovgaard
You Are Standing at the Edge of the Woods

centerYou are standing at the edge… at twilight when something begins to sing, like a waterfall pouring down
 1
When Death Comes

When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the… to buy me, and snaps the purse shu… when death comes
 1
 9
The Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all… Did you see it in the morning, ris… An armful of white blossoms, A perfect commotion of silk and li… into the bondage of its wings; a s…
 2
 1
The Summer Day

Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black b… Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean– the one who has flung herself out…
 1
 9
Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who make the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories,
 14
Wild geese flying
Wild Geese

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your kn… for a hundred miles through the de… You only have to let the soft anim… love what it loves.
 3
 14
Can You Imagine?

“For example, what the trees do not only in lightning storms or the watery dark of a summer’s n… or under the white nets of winter but now, and now, and now—whenever
 1
Some Questions You Might Ask

Is the soul solid, like iron? Or is it tender and breakable, lik… the wings of a moth in the beak of… Who has it, and who doesn’t? I keep looking around me.
 6



Alto