Drive down any road, take a train or an airplane across the world, leave your old life behind, die and be born again~ wherever you arrive they'll be there first, glossy and rowdy and indistinguishable. The deep muscle of the world. Mary Oliver More Quotes by Mary Oliver More Quotes From Mary Oliver All my life Mary Oliver ambition home wonderful And now you'll be telling stories of my coming back and they won't be false, and they won't be true but they'll be real Mary Oliver coming-back real stories Who do you want to be in your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver precious-life want But the owls themselves are not hard to find, silent and on the wing, with their ear tufts flat against their heads as they fly and their huge wings alternately gliding and flapping as they maneuver through the trees. Athena's owl of wisdom and Merlin's companion, Archimedes, were screech owls surely, not this bird with the glassy gaze, restless on the bough, nothing but blood on its mind. Mary Oliver wings bird blood All culture developed as some wild, raw creature strived to live better and longer. Mary Oliver creatures culture GOING TO WALDEN It isn't very far as highways lie. I might be back by nightfall, having seen The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water. Friends argue that I might be wiser for it. They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper: How dull we grow from hurrying here and there! Many have gone, and think me half a fool To miss a day away in the cool country. Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish, Going to Walden is not so easy a thing As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult Trick of living, and finding it where you are. Mary Oliver country book lying And it is exceedingly short, his galloping life. Dogs die so soon. I have my stories of that grief, no doubt many of you do also. It is almost a failure of will, a failure of love, to let them grow old-or so it feels. We would do anything to keep them with us, and to keep them young. The one gift we cannot give. Mary Oliver grief dog giving Poetry is a life-cherishing force. Mary Oliver cherish force poetry-is My first two books are out of print and, okay, they can sleep there comfortably. It's early work, derivative work. Mary Oliver sleep two book A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the trees, or the laws which pertain to them ... A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing. . . Mary Oliver law dog rain The god of dirt came up to me many times and said so many wise and delectable things, I lay on the grass listening to his dog voice, frog voice; now, he said, and now, and never once mentioned forever from, One or Two Things Mary Oliver wise dog two I know many lives worth living. Mary Oliver life-worth-living worth-living knows And now I understand something so frightening &wonderful- how the mind clings to the road it knows, rushing through crossroads, sticking like lint to the familiar. Mary Oliver rushing mind wonderful I know death is the fascinating snake under the leaves, sliding and sliding; I know the heart loves him too, can't turn away, can't break the spell. Everything wants to enter the slow thickness, aches to be peaceful finally and at any cost. Wants to be stone. Mary Oliver snakes heart death One thing I do know is that poetry, to be understood, must be clear. Mary Oliver clear understood knows Life is much the same when it's going well-- resonant and unremarkable. But who, not under disaster's seal, can understand what life is like when it begins to crumble? Mary Oliver disaster wells life People want poetry. They need poetry. They get it. They don't want fancy work. Mary Oliver want people needs To find a new word that is accurate and different, you have to be alert for it. Mary Oliver new-words accurate different Oh, yesterday, that one, we all cry out. Oh, that one! How rich and possible everything was! How ripe, ready, lavish, and filled with excitement--how hopeful we were on those summer days, under the clean, white racing clouds. Oh, yesterday! Mary Oliver white summer yesterday LITTLE DOGS RHAPSODY IN THE NIGHT (PERCY THREE) He puts his cheek against mine and makes small, expressive sounds. And when I'm awake, or awake enough he turns upside down, his four paws in the air and his eyes dark and fervent. Tell me you love me, he says. Tell me again. Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over he gets to ask it. I get to tell. Mary Oliver eye dog dark
