Mary Oliver was recommended to me by Swee and he was dead on. Long Life is her most recent book, apparently, published this year. Mostly prose. And he was right - my writing shadows hers, my emotions are half-cooked nuggets made of similar dough to her party cakes of bliss.
Here are a few important segments:
"All through our gliding journey, on this day as on so many others, a little song runs through my mind. I say a song because it passes musically, but it is really just words, a thought that is neither strange nor complex. In fact, how strange it would be not to think it --not to have such music inside one's head and body, on such an afternoon. What does it mean, say the words, that the earth is so beautiful? And what shall I do about it? What is the gift that I should bring to the world? What is the life that I should live?"
After a list of other experiences..."Once I saw the freshly built dam of two beaver, a half moon of mud and slender brances, the leaves still fresh upon them; then, as I watched, the water shoved with its silver gloves and it broke, it left the world forever. Hurry, hurry, open every door! says my heart."
"God's heavy footsteps through the bracken through the
bog through the dark wood his breath like a swollen river
his switch, lopping the flowers, forgive me, Lord, how I
still, sometimes,
crave understanding."
And here, this most familiar:
"Once, years ago, I emerged from the woods in the early morning at the end of a walk and--it was the most casual of moments--as I stepped from under the trees into the mild, pourin-down sunlight I experienced a sudden impact, a seizure of happiness. It was not the drowning sort of happiness, rather the floating sort. I made no struggle toward it; it was given. Time seemed to vanish. Urgency vanished. Any important difference between myself and all other things vanished. I knew that I belonged to the world, and felt comfortably my own containment in the totality. I did not feel that I understood any mystery, not at all; rather that I could be happy and feel blessed within the perplexity--..."
There's much more, of course, but for now I just want to post her words as a hint, and take a break from them to find a voice again. I cannot be anything but an appreciative mimic right now. Thank you so very much, Swee.
