“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
-Mary Oliver, The Summer Day
I was so saddened to hear of Mary Oliver’s passing a couple of weeks ago. She’s been a staple in my library for many, many years and her words will continue to inspire me to live more simply, more intentionally, more curiously, and with more love and vigor each time I come across them.
Oliver has a special way of describing her everyday experiences — from the completely ordinary to the deeply moving — by plucking from them the simplest, most uncomplicated words and phrases and stringing them together to create divinely powerful and breathtaking lines and stanzas. The kind of thoughts and phrases that seep right into your soul and leave you feeling reinvigorated and ready to go about even the most mundane of daily tasks, because you’re reminded that there’s beauty in all of it. Every breath, every chore, every gust of wind. Oliver encourages us to seek and appreciate the spiritualness of every moment we’re given.
Having come from a rough upbringing, Oliver turned her pain into passion and threw herself into her poetry in a fashion that is refreshing and relatable to all audiences. She strongly believed that, “poetry mustn’t be fancy,” and that has made her an incredibly approachable poet for any reader who comes across her work.
A few of my personal favorite lines:
“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
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?”
–The Summer Day
“Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.”
–Why I Wake Early
“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.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.”
–Wild Geese
“Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it.
It’s frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.”
–Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does it End?
“She is the most beautiful woman
I have ever seen.
Her child leaps among the flowers,
the blue of the sky falls over me
like silk, the flowers burn, and I want
to live my life all over again, to begin again,
to be utterly
wild.”
–A Meeting
Oliver’s work is ideal for avid poetry readers, for those those who have a passing interest, and even for those who don’t typically consume this particular style of writing.
I highly encourage you to take a few moments out of your day and read just a few. Take your pick. Whether you’re seeking words on nature or relationships, the passing of time or personal growth, whether you’re in the mood for something light and airy or heavy and serious, there’s plenty to choose from. She even has a collection called Dog Songs, which celebrates the unique relationship between canines and humans.
Truly, there’s a Mary Oliver poem for everyone.
xo, Aly