Mary Oliver

When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

Animals praise a good day, a good hunt. They praise rain if they're thirsty. That's prayer. They don't live an unconscious life, they simply have no language to talk about these things. But they are grateful for the good things that come along.

It's very important to write things down instantly, or you can lose the way you were thinking out a line. I have a rule that if I wake up at 3 in the morning and think of something, I write it down.

We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I stayed where I was happy. I spent a great deal of time in my younger years just writing and reading, walking around the woods in Ohio, where I grew up.

We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I stayed where I was happy.

To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

Because of the dog's joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born.

Why should I have been surprised?Hunters walk the forestwithout a sound.The hunter, strapped to his rifle,the fox on his feet of silk,the serpent on his empire of muscles__ll move in a stillness,hungry, careful, intent.Just as the cancerentered the forest of my body,without a sound.

I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.

Sometimes breaking the rules is just extending the rules

All night my heart makes its wayhowever it can over the rough groundof uncertainties, but only until nightmeets and then is overwhelmed bymorning, the light deepening, thewind easing and just waiting, as Itoo wait (and when have I ever beendisappointed?) for redbird to sing

This is what I have. The dull hangover of waiting, the blush of my heart on the damp grass,the flower-faced moon. A gull broods on the shore where a moment ago there were two. Softly my right hand fondles my left hand as though it were you.

When it__ over, I want to say: all my lifeI was a bride married to amazement.I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.When it__ over, I don__ want to wonderif I have made of my life something particular, and real.I don__ want to find myself sighing and frightenedor full of argument.I don__ want to end up simply having visited this world.

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting readyto break my heartas the sun rises, as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingersand they open __ools of lace, white and pink __nd all day the black ants climb over them,boring their deep and mysterious holesinto the curls, craving the sweet sap, taking it awayto their dark, underground cities __nd all dayunder the shifty wind, as in a dance to the great wedding,the flowers bend their bright bodies, and tip their fragrance to the air, and rise, their red stems holdingall that dampness and recklessness gladly and lightly, and there it is again _ beauty the brave, the exemplary,blazing open. Do you love this world? Do you cherish your humble and silky life? Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden, and softly, and exclaiming of their dearness, fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling, their eagernessto be wild and perfect for a moment, before they arenothing, forever?

Winter walks up and down the town swinging his censer, but no smoke or sweetness comes from it, only the sour, metallic frankness of salt and snow.

Tom Dancer__ gift of a whitebark pine coneYou never know What opportunity Is going to travel to you, Or through you.Once a friend gave me A small pine cone- One of a few He found in the scatOf a grizzly In Utah maybe, Or Wyoming. I took it homeAnd did what I supposed He was sure I would do- I ate it, ThinkingHow it had traveled Through that rough And holy body. It was crisp and sweet.It was almost a prayer Without words. My gratitude, Tom Dancer, For this gift of the world I adore so much And want to belong to. And thank you too, great bear

The sweetness of dogs (fifteen) What do you say, Percy? I am thinkingof sitting out on the sand to watchthe moon rise. Full tonight.So we goand the moon rises, so beautiful it makes me shudder, makes me think abouttime and space, makes me takemeasure of myself: one iotapondering heaven. Thus we sit,I thinking how grateful I am for the moon__ perfect beauty and also, oh! How richit is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile, leans against me and gazes up intomy face. As though I werehis perfect moon.

On the beach, at dawn:Four small stones clearlyHugging each other.How many kinds of loveMight there be in the world,And how many formations might they makeAnd who am I everTo imagine I could knowSuch a marvelous business?When the sun brokeIt poured willingly its lightOver the stonesThat did not move, not at all,Just as, to its always generous term,It shed its light on me,My own body that loves, Equally, to hug another body.