pulitzer prize-winning poet mary oliver died today at 83 and it could be because it’s january 17th and I’m depressed but, as someone who has an appreciation for poetry but can never seem to get in to it, mary oliver’s works have a very special place in my heart
during my senior year of high school I took a discussion-based european literature course that was both the hardest and best course I have ever taken in all my years of schooling purely because the teacher was mrs shepard who was in her 70s, taught part time because she was battling cancer, wore what had to be the full chico’s catalogue, and she remains everything I want to be when I grow up
she was the most thought-provoking and knowledgeable teacher I’ve ever had and always encouraged us to really dig in to and consider what we were studying and truly encouraged a passion for literature, and the cultures and people the works came from, in all of us
she was deeply empathetic and encouraged all of us to be the same and she worked hard to build relationships with each of us and with each other
she was never afraid or ashamed to discuss the struggles, hardships, and setbacks she faced over her life and even agreed to meet me for coffee after graduation when my grandma died to talk about emotions surrounding death and life and healing and i still believe taking her class and getting to know her was one of the best decisions I’ve made as a person
all of that backstory to say that every year she chose a poem to gift her seniors to take with them and hold close to their hearts when they need it
she gifted us “wild geese” by mary oliver which, of all her works and those of others, remains my favorite poem to this day
so on this, mary’s death day, please take a moment to read “wild geese” and may you all hear the harsh and exciting call of the world and find your place in the family of things
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity,
wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
A dry October breeze scatters the feathery Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) seed tufts, resembling nature’s miniature version of exploding fireworks.
The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I
smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, for none now live who
remember it.
