At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain. I dip my cupped hands. I drink a long time. It tastes like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold into my body, waking the bones. I hear them deep inside me, whispering oh what is that beautiful thing that just happened?

Mary Oliver

Categorized in : Fall Beautiful Rain

it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.

Mary Oliver

serious-things broken morning

Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? 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. Instructions for living a life: pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

Mary Oliver

want attention world

I don't ask for the sights in front of me to change, only the depth of my seeing.

Mary Oliver

asks depth sight

I would say that there exists a thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our chances are one. The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list. The pine tree, the leopard, the Platte River, and ourselves-we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together, we are each other's destiny.

Mary Oliver

destiny stars feet

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that's often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Mary Oliver

fighting wise love-is

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 well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music or rivers or the green and tender grass? What would this world be like without dogs?

Mary Oliver

honor dog rivers

Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields...Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.

Mary Oliver

kindness morning watches

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

Mary Oliver

pay attention life

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

Mary Oliver

inspirational love life

Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads. (from “Mysteries, Yes”)

Mary Oliver

distance inspirational thinking

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it.

Mary Oliver

feels joy giving

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.

Mary Oliver

love relationship life

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

teacher inspirational life

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began.

Mary Oliver

one-day

In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love and the ability to question. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us.

Mary Oliver

ability-to-love fire two

It's morning, and again I am that lucky person who is in it.

Mary Oliver

lucky persons morning

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

Mary Oliver

imagination dream heart

I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable and beautiful and afraid of nothing as though I had wings.

Mary Oliver

beautiful inspirational thinking

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?

Mary Oliver

blessed prayer fall

Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.

Mary Oliver

soul sweet inspirational