Top 5 Mary Oliver poems? 😬 this is legit though, because I’m realizing I haven’t read anywhere near as much of her stuff as I should and I need somewhere to start (also “Wild Geese” has been resonating with me lately even more than usual because of some discussions with my therapist, which is really cool timing because this time of year is exactly when tons of Canada geese come through)
so I went and read a bunch of Mary Oliver poems to think about this and choose one and like. wow Mary Oliver poems. just gonna lie back and have some emotions for a little while.
how does she do that, anyway, I’m not generally a poetry person but I read Mary Oliver and I’m just like. oh. oh thanks for taking my heart out and making me look at it, bud
anyway! here are five. links go to full text, quotes are just selections.
1. “Wild Geese.” You already know this one, obviously, but it bears mentioning anyway because it is just...truly, such a special poem.
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.
2. “A Settlement.” I think about this one a lot. Specifically the last lines of it, but I also think “look, it’s spring” to myself sometimes, as a kind of...shorthand? idk.
Therefore, dark past,
I’m about to do it.
I’m about to forgive you
3. “Black Oaks.” This is a newer one I ran across more recently and it knocked me down and kicked me in the productivity jail feelings, but, like, kindly. I feel like a lot of Mary Oliver is just about...enoughness, about being and the sufficiency of being. About not having to prove anything. And. Yipes. Relevant.
Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from
one boot to another — why don’t you get going?
For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.
And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists
of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money,
I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.
4. “The Summer Day.” People quote the last line of this one all the time, for good reason (it’s lovely) but the poem as a whole is also...you know, I hate the “carpe diem” thing sometimes but when Mary Oliver does it it works for me. Maybe because it feels less “go out! do something!” and more just...”the world is beautiful. embrace it.” Again, the sufficiency of idleness.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
5. “The Journey.” This one was one of my first Mary Oliver poem encounters (the other was “At Blackwater Pond,” actually, which I do have a soft spot for for that reason). And it’s - different from the others, but it’s affirmative to me in some of the same way that “Wild Geese” is.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life that you could save.
