An Autograph

I’ve never been a hero-worshipper or found myself in throngs of squealing fans enthralled with some new star. It wasn’t that I didn’t want heroes; I think it was just having a few too many disappointments rather early on. So imagine my chagrin when I found myself thrilled to receive an autographed copy of a Mary Oliver book for Christmas. I actually gasped. There on the inside cover, right in the middle of the page in black ink from the medium-fine nib of a fountain pen was her name. No fancy script, no curls or flourishes, just basic cursive, completely readable with a dot over the “i” that ran a little to the right, and then a period after the name as if it were the end of a sentence.  

 I ran my finger across it, slowly, then jumping the gap, I tapped the period. That’s probably as close to Ms. Oliver as I’ll ever get, but it was something, a meeting of sorts, creating substance in that book that went beyond that of her discerning thoughts and penetrating observations.

It has been a treasure to live in her time, share the world she’s seen and experienced. Her poetry and her prose never cease to leave a sustained impression for she is real. Art of the highest caliber takes more than a talent that one is willing to raise to its most skillful level. Art also requires that an artist not back away from life, that they face whatever is dished up to them and stay with it alert, engaged even when the demons howl. Mary Oliver has known blistering poverty, illness, the loss of one she loved for over 40 years and sundry other challenges that rocked her life. But she persisted and remained open and intimate with the world around her.  Emerson once said, “…we only believe as deep as we live.” It is Mary Oliver’s gift to us that she has lived so deeply.

What follows are excerpts from the book she wrote after the loss of Molly Malone Cook, entitled Thirst:

‘When Roses Speak, I Pay Attention’

…And they went on. “Listen,

the heart-shackles are not, as you think,

death, illness, pain,

unrequited hope, not loneliness, but

lassitude, rue, vainglory, fear, anxiety, selfishness.”

The fragrance all the while rising

from their blind bodies, making me spin with joy.

‘A Pretty Song’

From the complications of loving you
I think there is no end or return.

No answer, no coming out of it.

Which is the only way to love, isn’t it?

This isn’t a playground, this is
earth, our heaven, for a while.

Therefore I have given precedence to

all my sudden, sullen, dark moods

that hold you in the center of my world.

And I say to my body: grow thinner still.
And I say to my fingers, type me a pretty song.
And I say to my heart: rave on.

‘Praying’

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones;

Just pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence into which
another voice may speak.

Is it no wonder I would like to be closer to her? But if it is just occasionally running my finger across her name left from her pen in my book, I will be grateful for even that proximity to a being who so astonishes me.

The Ultimate Thanksgiving - The Opportunity to Live a Life on Earth

How many of the billions of inhabitants of this planet have any idea how rare it is to have been born here as a human being? Do I? Do you? Do we sense or even know what we are capable of. Move past technology. That’s child’s play compared to the nature of life lived from our own individual stashes of  conscious intelligence that permit us to choose past instincts, beyond our DNA, to touch the eternal while woven into a fabric of daily life and trials. How many of us use this chance to explore our real nature, to employ this moment to exceed the limits of habit and name and gender and old stories? A trail head to this worldly journey, which turns us within, is our willingness to accept this earthly experience as it is… period… without judgment… so that the roll of the dice that put us here we will count as a win and know, as we’ve never quite known, what we have to be thankful for and why.

Let a king of poetry, W.S. Merwin give you a sense of it in his poem “Thanks”

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water thanking it

standing by the windows looking out

in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging

after funerals we are saying thank you

after the news of the dead

whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you

in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators

remembering wars and the police at the door

and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks we are saying thank you

in the faces of the officials and the rich

and of all who will never change

we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us

taking our feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster than the minutes

of our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

thank you we are saying and waving

dark though it is.