Thirst (4 page)

You’re like a little wild thing
that was never sent to school.
Sit, I say, and you jump up.
Come, I say, and you go galloping down the sand
to the nearest dead fish
with which you perfume your sweet neck.
It is summer.
How many summers does a little dog have?

Run, run, Percy.
This is our school.

And now Percy is getting brazen.
Let’s down the beach, baby, he says.
Let’s shake it with a little barking.
Let’s find dead things, and explore them,
by mouth, if possible.

Or maybe the leavings of Paul’s horse (after which,
forgive me for mentioning it, he is fond of kissing).

Ah, this is the thing that comes to each of us.
The child grows up.
And, according to our own ideas, is practically asunder.

I understand it.
I struggle to celebrate.
I say, with a stiff upper lip familiar to many:

Just look at that curly-haired child now, he’s his own man.

Some black ducks
were shrugged up
on the shore.
It was snowing

hard, from the east,
and the sea
was in disorder.
Then some sanderlings,

five inches long
with beaks like wire,
flew in,
snowflakes on their backs,

and settled
in a row
behind the ducks—
whose backs were also

covered with snow—
so close
they were all but touching,
they were all but under

the roof of the ducks’ tails,
so the wind, pretty much,
blew over them.
They stayed that way, motionless,

for maybe an hour,
then the sanderlings,
each a handful of feathers,
shifted, and were blown away

out over the water
which was still raging.
But, somehow,
they came back

and again the ducks,
like a feathered hedge,
let them
crouch there, and live.

If someone you didn’t know
told you this,
as I am telling you this,
would you believe it?

Belief isn’t always easy.
But this much I have learned—
if not enough else—
to live with my eyes open.

I know what everyone wants
is a miracle.
This wasn’t a miracle.
Unless, of course, kindness—

as now and again
some rare person has suggested—
is a miracle.
As surely it is.

I wish
    I were
        the yellow chat
            down in the thickets

who sings all night,
    throwing
        into the air
            praises

and panhandles,
    plaints,
        in curly phrases,
            half-rhymes,

free verse too,
    with head-dipping
        and wing-wringing,
            with soft breast

rising into the air—
    meek and sleek,
        broadcasting,
            with no time out

for pillow-rest,
    everything—
        pathos,
            thanks—

oh, Lord,
    what a lesson
        you send me
            as I stand

listening
    to your rattling, swamp-loving chat
        singing
            of his simple, leafy life—

how I would like to sing to you
    all night
        in the dark
            just like that.

Another morning and I wake with thirst
for the goodness I do not have. I walk
out to the pond and all the way God has
given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,
I was never a quick scholar but sulked
and hunched over my books past the
hour and the bell; grant me, in your
mercy, a little more time. Love for the
earth and love for you are having such a
long conversation in my heart. Who
knows what will finally happen or
where I will be sent, yet already I have
given a great many things away, expect
ing to be told to pack nothing, except the
prayers which, with this thirst, I am
slowly learning.

Beacon Press
25 Beacon Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108-2892
www.beacon.org

Beacon Press books
are published under the auspices of
the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.

© 2006 by Mary Oliver
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

Text design by Dede Cummings/
DCDESIGN

The epigraph comes from
The Sayings of the Desert Fathers,
Benedicta Ward, SLG, translator. Copyright 1975 by Sister Benedicta. Published by Cistercian Publications Inc.

11 10 09 08 07  8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

eISBN: 978-0-8070-6903-5

This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the uncoated paper ANSI/NISO specifications for permanence as revised in 1992.

Library of Congress
Control Number: 2006928745