Mary Oliver: Messenger (from 'Thirst')

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird -
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

Mary Oliver: Thirst

For some time, the volume 'Thirst' by Mary Oliver has been on my Amazon wish list. I don't remember how I first read about these poems but whatever I read made me wish for them, in that Amazonian way. I searched online and found her poem 'A Visitor' and felt this was a poet I could happily spend time with.

Well, today, I bought the slim volume of poems (in Borders, not Amazon) and have been astonished at my good fortune: seldom, if ever, have I felt such immediate rapport with a poet and with poetry.

Drinking good coffee in the Borders' Starbucks, reading the first poem or two, was an absolute delight, a luxuriating moment.

Here are poems to savour slowly.

ambidextrous

She said
I was wrong;

I thought
I was right.

So I
left her

to choose
the way.