The multiplicity of forms – Mary Oliver

 

 

GOOD MORNING

“Hello, wren” is the first thing I say.
“Where did you come from appearing so
sudden and cheerful in the privet? Which,
by the way, has decided to decorate itself
in so many white blossoms.”

Paulus is coming to visit! Paulus the
dancer, the potter. Who is just beginning
his eightieth decade, who walks without
shoes in the woods because his feet, he
says, ask to be in touch with the earth.
Paulus who when he says my poems sometimes
changes them a little, according to the
occasion or his own feelings. Okay, I say.

Stay young, always, in the theater of your
mind.

Bless the notebook that I always carry in
my pocket.
And the pen.
Bless the words with which I try to say
what I see, think, or feel.
With gratitude for the grace of the earth.
The expected and the exception, both.
For all the hours I have been given to
be in this world.

The multiplicity of forms! The hummingbird,
the fox, the raven, the sparrow hawk, the
otter, the dragonfly, the water lily! And
on and on. It must be a great disappointment
to God if we are not dazzled at least ten
times a day.

Slowly the morning climbs toward the day.
As for the poem, not this poem but any
poem, do you feel its sting? Do you feel
its hope, its entance to a community? Do
you feel its hand in your hand?

But perhaps you’re still sleeping. I
could wake you with a touch or a kiss.
But so could I shake the petals from
the wild rose which blossoms so silently
and perfectly, and I do not.

~ by Mary Oliver