Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.

I stood like Adam in his lonely gardenOn that first morning, shaken out of sleep,Rubbing his eyes, listening, parting the leaves,Like tissue on some vast, incredible gift.

Every springI hear the thrush singingin the glowing woodshe is only passing through.His voice is deep,then he lifts it until it seemsto fall from the sky.I am thrilled.I am grateful.Then, by the end of morning,he's gone, nothing but silenceout of the treewhere he rested for a night.And this I find acceptable.Not enough is a poor life.But too much is, well, too much.Imagine Verdi or Mahlerevery day, all day.It would exhaust anyone.

It is better for the heart to break, than not to break.

Intellectual work sometimes, spiritual work certainly, artistic work always _ these are forces that fall within its grasp, forces that must travel beyond the realm of the hour and the restraint of the habit. Nor can the actual work be well separated from the entire life. Like the knights of the Middle Ages, there is little the creatively inclined person can do but to prepare himself, body and spirit, for the labor to come _ for his adventures are all unknown. In truth, the work itself is the adventure. And no artist could go about this work, or would want to, with less than extraordinary energy and concentration. The extraordinary is what art is about.

Last nightthe rainspoke to meslowly, saying, what joyto come fallingout of the brisk cloud, to be happy againin a new wayon the earth! That__ what it saidas it dropped, smelling of iron, and vanishedlike a dream of the oceaninto the branchesand the grass below.Then it was over.The sky cleared.I was standingunder a tree.The tree was a treewith happy leaves, and I was myself, and there were stars in the skythat were also themselvesat the momentat which momentmy right handwas holding my left handwhich was holding the treewhich was filled with starsand the soft rain __magine! imagine! the long and wondrous journeysstill to be ours.

There are things you can__ reach. ButYou can reach out to them, and all day long.The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of god.And it can keep you busy as anything else, and happier.I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing aroundAs though with your arms open.

How perfect to be aboard a ship withmaybe a hundred years still in my pocket.But it's late, for all of us,and in truth the only ship there isis the ship we are all onburning the world as we go.

Things take the time they take.Don't worry.How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine?

Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

I wanted the past to go away, I wanted to leave it, like another country; I wanted my life to close, and open like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song where it falls down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery; I wanted to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,whoever I was, I wasalive for a little while.

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

Poetry is meant to be heard.

People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work.

One thing I do know is that poetry, to be understood, must be clear.

Poetry is one of the ancient arts, and it began as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth.

Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.