Mary Oliver

“In Blackwater Woods Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment, the long tapers of cattails are burstin...”

“Love Sorrow Love sorrow. She is yours now, and you must take care of what has been given. Brush her hair, help her into her little coat, hold her hand, especially when crossing a street. For...”

“I know many lives worth living.”

“the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own”

“The Old Poets Of China Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it. Now I understand why the old poets of China went so far...”

“I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country; I wanted my life to close, and open like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song where it falls down over th...”

“oxygen Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even, while it calls the earth its home, the soul. So the merciful, noisy machine stands in our house working away in its lung-like voice. I he...”

“Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment, the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away...”

“Sometimes I dream that everything in the world is here, in my room, in a great closet, named and orderly, and I am here too, in front of it, hardly able to see for the flash and the brightne...”

“So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing, and put your lips to the world. And live your life.”

“Poetry is a life-cherishing force.”

“Sleeping In The Forest I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on...”

“And then I feel the sun itself as it blazes over the hills, like a million flowers on fire -- clearly I'm not needed, yet I feel myself turning into something of inexplicable value. -from Th...”

“At Blackwater Pond At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain. I dip my cupped hands. I drink a long time. It tastes like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold into...”

“Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled— to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. I want to believe I am looking in...”

“Poem (the spirit likes to dress up) The spirit likes to dress up like this: ten fingers, ten toes, shoulders, and all the rest at night in the black branches, in the morning in the blue bran...”

“When When it’s over, it’s over, and we don’t know any of us, what happens then. So I try not to miss anything. I think, in my whole life, I have never missed The full moon or the slipper of...”

“Dogfish I wanted The past to go away, I wanted To leave it, like another country; I wanted My life to close, and open Like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song Where it falls Down...”

“I went down not long ago to the Mad River, under the willows I knelt and drank from that crumpled flow, call it what madness you will, there's a sickness worse than the risk of death and tha...”

“Though I play at the edges of knowing, truly I know our part is not knowing, but looking, and touching, and loving”