Mary Oliver, requiescat in pace

In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare has Mark Anthony say “The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.” (Act 3, Scene 2?) Mary Oliver, who yesterday walked on, is an exception that proves Anthony's rule. Her good lives on not only in the memories of those who knew her, but also in the hearts of those who read her poetry and loved it and her through it. We were among the latter. We will miss her good words, her good insights, her good heart, her good instructions in how to write good poetry, her goodness.

days and lives arise

Photo by J. Harrington

and they set

Photo by J. Harrington

Oliver lived much of her adult life in one of our favorite places, Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod. Many of the places and creatures she wrote of in her poems are familiar to us since we lived near and visited the Cape often. She depicted the place and its inhabitants and visitors accurately. Unfortunately, her ability to experience an awe awakened by encounters with such places and creatures is all too rare. Many, too many, of us take for granted or, worse, find beneath our notice, the aspects of nature that enabled her to enthrall us. Her simple language is available to each of us. Her appreciation of life shared with nonhuman peoples isn't. More's the pity. She will be missed. She is as much a national treasure as the Cape Cod Seashore. We expect her poems will be as long-lived and resilient as the places she wrote about, cared for, and will always be part of. May she always rest in peace, embraced by the world she so loved. The following link will take you to a list of her published works. If you've not read her, do yourself a favor and pick up any one of them at a book store or library. Learn to see, pay attention, and live.

Some Things The World Gave

by Mary Oliver

1
Times in the morning early
when it rained and the long gray
buildings came forward from darkness
offering their windows for light.

2
Evenings out there on the plains
when sunset donated farms
that yearned so far to the west that the world
centered there and bowed down.

3
A teacher at a country school
walking home past a great marsh
where ducks came gliding in --
she saw the boy out hunting and waved.

4
Silence on a hill where the path ended
and then the forest below
moving in one long whisper
as evening touched the leaves.

5
Shelter in winter that day --
a storm coming, but in the lee
of an island in a cover with friends --
oh, little bright cup of sun.

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