Mary Oliver – Page 7 – Barnstorming

Every Morning I’m Alive

October 10, 2018 barnstormingblog4 Comments

Isn’t it plain the sheets of moss, except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they wanted about

spiritual patience? Isn’t it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing
as though they were the most fragile of flowers?

Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.

Every morning, so far, I’m alive…
~Mary Oliver from “Landscape” in New and Selected Poems

If even the mighty oaks standing along a path are as fragile as flowers,
then how fragile is my heart?

I wake each morning reminded of the treasure of a new day, cranking open the rusty doors of my heart.

Let the fresh air of grace and gratitude fill me today.

A Long and Wondrous Journey

September 15, 2018 barnstormingblog4 Comments

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,
what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again
in a new way
on the earth!

Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing
under a tree.

imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.
~Mary Oliver from “Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me”

Our rainfall this week was met with joy and relief, refreshing what had waited all summer parched and dry and dying.

Too little too late.

Across the country and in other parts of the world, this week’s rainfall caused flooding and destruction, threatening homes and lives.

Too much too soon.

This life’s too little/too much journeys are frightening, wondrous and arduous.

And this journey, this life, is ours to travel. Let us pray for a little more just right.

Even the Winds and Sea Obey

August 26, 2018 barnstormingblog1 Comment

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. A gale arose on the lake, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him up, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’ And he said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, you of little faith?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. They were amazed, saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?’
Matthew 8:23-27

Sweet Jesus, talking
   his melancholy madness,
     stood up in the boat
       and the sea lay down,

silky and sorry.
   So everybody was saved
      that night…

         Nobody knows what the soul is.

It comes and goes
   like the wind over the water —
      sometimes, for days,
        you don’t think of it.

Maybe, after the sermon,
   after the multitude was fed,
     one or two of them felt
       the soul slip forth

like a tremor of pure sunlight
   before exhaustion,
      that wants to swallow everything,
         gripped their bones and left them

miserable and sleepy,
    as they are now, forgetting
       how the wind tore at the sails
          before he rose and talked to it —

tender and luminous and demanding
   as he always was —
      a thousand times more frightening
         than the killer storm.
~Mary Oliver from “Maybe”

I sleep through my diminishing days even more than I sleep through the nights, not nearly focused enough on each passing moment that never is to come again. Those moments crash to shore and then pull back to be lost forever.

There is a blindness in us all about what is inevitably coming, how we are tumbled over the years like waves, overcome by their passage.

He is tender and luminous and demanding and He talks to us, not just the relentless stormy destructive sea.

Peace be still!

And so I obey, forgiven, and am saved by grace,
so silky and sorry.

As I Stand Here, Empty Handed

June 21, 2018 barnstormingblog5 Comments

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
~Mary Oliver, The Sun

On this day of transition
we stand together, wavering,
barely balancing
on the cusp of light and shadow~

this knowledge of a now diminishing sun
rests heavy in my bones as I struggle
with letting this glorious light
slip through my fingers~
I stand empty-handed
as I attend to less important things.

As darkness begins to claim our days again,
I seek to rise like a full moon
illuminating the long night,
burnishing my readiness for eternity.

Open Minded

June 20, 2018 barnstormingblog3 Comments

Although I favor the open mind, I certainly do not advocate that the mind should be so open that the brains fall out.
~Arthur Hays Sulzberger — New York Times publisher from 1935-1961 from “Freedom of Information”

I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.
— Mary Oliver from New and Selected Poems, Volume Two

Few things are as condemning in this day and age than being accused of being close-minded. In religion and politics, the most zealous liberals and hard-core conservatives are the least likely to see another point of view, much less tolerate it.

There is no chance of growth or redemption when there is no openness and willingness to change, to admit one could be a little bit misinformed or just plain wrong.

But I’ve known those who are so open-minded, there is nothing left inside their head but “whatever”:

~~It doesn’t matter,
anything goes,
if it works for you,
who am I to judge,
it’s a free country,
consenting adults and all that~~

No boundaries, no barriers, all windows flung ajar and liberating breezes coming and going, no foundational beliefs, and then common sense is hopelessly robbed blind.

It is a terribly empty void to behold.

As for me, moderate middle-of-the-road person that I am, I strive to remain unlocked and ready to answer the knock on the door of my convictions and opinions to see who or what may be there, to be receptive to some possibility other than what I think I see and know.

In reality I’d rather be open-hearted over open-minded. It is far riskier, this bleeding of the heart until empty when touched, bruised or pierced. Perhaps a lot messier too.

Intentional bleeding, not accidental. Such a Love spilled from an open beating Heart followed by a flood of profound and forever undeserved Grace.

May that Heart break at the folly of our emptiness and never again close to the world.

Entirely Content

April 26, 2018 barnstormingblog5 Comments

birdonpostrodenberger — photo by Harry Rodenberger

I do not know what gorgeous thing
the bluebird keeps saying,
his voice easing out of his throat,
beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
whatever it is. Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
in the world that is without
questions that can’t and probably
never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.
~Mary Oliver “What Gorgeous Thing” from Blue Horses by Penguin Press

We are experiencing a short reprieve this week from gray and drear and rain and typical April chill temperatures. It is suddenly fantastically spring, all in a big headlong rush toward summer. Our windows are wide open, there are apple-blossom breezes wafting through the house, the bees are busy, the birds singing at the top of their lungs as soon as daylight appears at 5:15AM.

What gorgeous thing it is to see and hear and smell and taste this glory if only for a day or two. So full of promise and potential.

Even if, as predicted,
the rain returns this weekend,
even if the grey clouds come back hovering heavily on our shoulders,
even if the air no longer carries forth this incredible perfume,
it did happen
and for the moment,
just a moment,
the world felt entirely content to simply be.

Breathing In and Out

April 14, 2018April 14, 2018 barnstormingblog2 Comments

What is there beyond knowing that keeps
calling to me? I can’t

turn in any direction
but it’s there. I don’t mean

the leaves’ grip and shine or even the thrush’s
silk song, but the far-off

fires, for example,
of the stars, heaven’s slowly turning

theater of light, or the wind
playful with its breath;

or time that’s always rushing forward,
or standing still

in the same — what shall I say —
moment.

What I know

I could put into a pack

as if it were bread and cheese, and carry it
on one shoulder,

important and honorable, but so small!
While everything else continues, unexplained

and unexplainable.

….mostly I just stand in the dark field,
in the middle of the world, breathing in and out…
~Mary Oliver from “What is there beyond knowing”

I’m reminded daily about how little I know and understand. I work with people who are suffering, whose symptoms may fit prescribed diagnostic criteria but yet defy explanation or reason. They care about what relief I might offer rather than a label that names the illness.

Like so much in medicine, what I witness daily is unexplained and unexplainable. What I do know I carry with me, small and honorable and shareable. I offer it up to each patient, one after another: here is what I think might help. here is your next step to take. here is the hope that goes with taking each breath, the next and the next.

Even when standing in the dark, as we all do at times in our life, we just keep breathing. In and out. In and out. We are filled even when empty.

She Breathed Me

January 27, 2018 barnstormingblog4 Comments

…and there was once, oh wonderful,
a new horse in the pasture,
a tall, slim being–a neighbor was keeping her there–
and she put her face against my face,
put her muzzle, her nostrils, soft as violets,
against my mouth and my nose, and breathed me,
to see who I was,
a long quiet minute–minutes–
then she stamped her feet and whisked tail
and danced deliciously into the grass away, and came back.
She was saying, so plainly, that I was good, or good enough.
~Mary Oliver from “The Poet Goes to Indiana”

224746_1024776858833_3119_n — photo by Lea Gibson

77_9143910461_1224_n — photo by Emily Vander Haak

Our farm has had many muzzles here over the years–

Pink noses,
gray noses,
nondescript not-sure-what-color noses,
noses that have white stripes, diamonds, triangles,
or absolutely no marks at all.

Hot breath that exudes warm grassy fragrance
better than any pricey perfume,
lips softer than the most elegant velvet.

Noses that reach out in greeting to:
blow,
sniff,
nuzzle,
caress,
push,
search,
breathe me in
and breathe for me,

smudge my face and
shower snot.

I’m just good enough
to warrant
such a baptism blessing.

Lost Inside This Soft World

January 18, 2018 barnstormingblogLeave a comment

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
~Mary Oliver from “Mindful”

Some days I’m the needle
and other days I’m the pin cushion

Today I may be both,
probing into people’s lives and feelings,
moving beyond their sharp edges
to find the source of their pain.
They don’t realize I wince too,
remembering how it feels.

I choose the softness of the light
that floats close to the ground,
that reaches out with cloudy grasp.

This is what I was born for:
delighted to be lost
and then found.

A Stretching Light

December 29, 2017December 29, 2017 barnstormingblog3 Comments

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds –
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
~Mary Oliver from “Swan”

This laboring of ours with all that remains undone,
as if still bound to it,
is like the lumbering gait of the swan.

And then our dying—releasing ourselves
from the very ground on which we stood—
is like the way he hesitantly lowers himself

into the water. It gently receives him,
and, gladly yielding, flows back beneath him,
as wave follows wave,
while he, now wholly serene and sure,
with regal composure,
allows himself to glide.
~Rainer Maria Rilke, “The Swan”

And could it be that I too,
awkward and lumbering through my days
may glide and soar when afloat or aloft.Could it be there is beauty hidden away and within
until I change how I look at life,
how I move in the air that I’m given to breathe
and how I am stretched by the Light that illuminates me?

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;

Among what rushes will they build,

By what lake’s edge or pool

Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day

To find they have flown away?
~William Butler Years from “The Wild Swans at Coole”

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