The Swan (3 page)

galloped up into the morning air
then floated

                        a long way

whispering, I imagine,
to the same mystery

                          I try to speak to
                     down here.

And look, he is carrying something—

            a little letter just light enough
        for him to hold

                           in his yellow beak!

Look now, he is placing it

                           inside a cloud

and singing at the same time
joyfully, and yet

            as if his heart would break.

Later, I take my weightier
but not unhappy body
into the house

            I busy myself
        (bury myself)

in books. But
all the while I am thinking

            of the gift
        of my seventy-some years

and how I would also if I could
carry a message of thanks

            to the doors of the clouds.

I don’t know whether it would be
of the heart or the mind. I know
it’s the poem I have yet to make.

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 happens 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.

At night the stars
  throw down
    their postcards of light.

Who are they
  that love me
    so much?

Strangers
  in the darkness—
    imagine!

they have seen me
  and they burn
    as I too

have burned, but in
  the mortal way, to which
    I am totally loyal.

Still, I am grateful
  and faithful
    to this other romance

though we will not ever know
  each others’ names,
    we will not ever

touch.

There appeared a darkly sparkling thing
hardly

bigger than a pin, that all afternoon
seemed

to want my company. It did me no hurt but
wandered

my shirt, my sleeve-cuff, my wrist.

Finally it opened its sheets of chitin and
flew away.

Linnaeus probably had given it a name, which I
didn’t know. All I could say was: Look

what’s come from its home of dirt and dust
and duff, its

cinch of instinct. What does music, I wondered,
mean to it?

What the distant horizons? Still, no doubt have I
that it has some purpose, as we all have

some purpose which, though none of us
knows what it is, we each go on claiming.

Oh, distant relative, we will never speak to
each other

a single kind word. And yet, in this world, it is
no small thing to sparkle.

The kingfisher hurrahs from a branch
above the river.

Under its feet is a fish that will swim
no more,

that also has its story, for another time
perhaps.

Now it’s the bird’s, pounding the fish then
hulking it down its open beak,

glad in its winning and not at all trammeled
by thought.

I keep trying to put this poem together.
Meanwhile

the bird is again gazing into the glaze
of this running food-bin. Thought does not

create the soul, not entirely, but it
plays its part.

Meanwhile the bird is flashy body and the fish
was flashy body and each

fulfills what it is, remembers little
and imagines less.

And thus the day passes into darkness
undamaged.

The fish, slippery and delicious.
The kingfisher, so quick, so blue.

The authors of history are among us still.

And believe me they believe what they believe

as sincerely as the millions who are simply

looking for a life, a purpose.

Who are the good people? We are all good people

except when we are not. Meanwhile the forests

are felled, the oceans rise, storms

give off the appearance of anger. Who

despises us and for what reasons? Whom do we

despise and for what reasons? Once there was a garden

and we were sent forth from it, possibly forever.

Possibly not, possibly there is no forever.

“What’s on your mind?” we say to each other.

As though it’s some kind of weight.

This morning what I am thinking of is circles:
the sun, the earth, the moon;

the life of each of us that begins then returns
to our home, the circular world,

even as in our cleverness we have invented
invention—the straight line

nothing like a leaf, or a lake or the moon
but simply, perilously

getting by on our wits from here to there.
Einstein chalks slowly across the blackboard,

erases, writes again. Mozart flings
his fluttering notes onto the rigid staff.

The drones fly straight to any target. This morning
what I am thinking about is circles

and the straight lines that rule us
while earth abides in all sorts of splendors,

knowing its limitations. The light
of every morning curls forth,

oh beautifully, then circles toward the dark.
Obama works, prays, then grabs his scrim of sleep.

I am thinking, or trying to think, about all the
  imponderables for which we have
    no answers, yet endless interest all the
      range of our lives, and it’s

good for the head no doubt to undertake such
  meditation; Mystery, after all,
    is God’s other name, and deserves our

considerations surely. But, but—
  excuse me now, please; it’s morning, heavenly bright,
    and my irrepressible heart begs me to hurry on
      into the next exquisite moment.

The grosbeak sings with a completely cherishable
roughness.

The yellow and orange and scarlet trees—what do
they denote but willingness, and the flamboyance
of change?

With what words can I convince you of the
casualness with which the white swans fly?

It doesn’t matter to me if the woodchuck and
the turtle are not always, and thoughtfully,
considering their lives and making decisions,
the certainty that they are doing this at all—
that alters everything.

Do you give a thought now and again to the
essential sparrow, the necessary toad?

Just as truly as the earth is ours, we belong
to it. The tissue of our minds is made of it,
and the soles of our feet, as fully as the
tiger’s claw, the branch of the whitebark pine,
the voices of the birds, the dog-tooth violet
and the tooth of the dog.

Have you ever seen a squirrel swim? I have.

Is it not incredible, that in the acorn something
has hidden an entire tree?

“For there is nothing that grows or lives that
can approach the feathery grace, the symmetry
of form, or the lacy elegance of pattern of the
Ferns: and to be blind to all this beauty is
nothing less than calamitous.”

In Australia there is a cloud called The
Morning Glory.

Okay, I confess to wanting to make a literature
of praise.

Where are you when you’re not thinking?

Frightening, isn’t it?

Where are you when you’re not feeling anything?

Oh, worse!

Except for faith and imagination, nature is that
hard fortress you can’t get out of.

Some persons are captive to love, others would
make the beloved a captive. Which one are you?

I think I have not lived a single hour of my life
by calculation.

There are in this world a lot of devils with wondrous
smiles. Also, many unruly angels.

The life of the body is, I suppose, along with
everything else, a lesson. I mean, if lessons are
what you look for.

Faith: this is the engine of my head, my breast
bone, my toes.

It is salvation if one can step forth from the
clutter of one’s mind into that open space—
that almost holy space—called work.

Emerson: how the elegance of his language can
make me weep over my own inadequacy.

Music: what so many sentences aspire to be.

Or, how sweet just to say of a great, burly
man: he’s a honey.

Or of the fox: his neat trot. The donkey, his
sorrowful plodding. The cheetah: his clean leap.
The alligator: his lunge.

Do you hear the rustle and outcry on the page?
Do you hear its longing?

Words are too wonderful for words. The vibrant
translation of things to ideas. Hello there.
My best greetings to you.

Lord, there are so many fires, so many words, in
my heart. It’s going to take something I can’t
even imagine, to put them all out.

Let laughter come to you now and again, that
sturdy friend.

The impulse to leap off the cliff, when the
body falsely imagines it might fly, may be
restrained by reason, also by modesty. Of the
two possibilities, take your choice, and live.

Refuse all cooperation with the heart’s death.

Sing, if you can sing, and if not still be
musical inside yourself.

I have been risky in my endeavors,

I have been steadfast in my loves;

Oh Lord, consider these when you judge me.

But, where are the words?

Not in my pocket.

Not in the refrigerator.

Not in my savings account.

So I sit, harassed, with my notebook.

It’s a joke, really, and not a good one.

For fun I try a few commands myself.

I say to the rain, stop raining.

I say to the sun, that isn’t anywhere nearby,

Come back, and come fast.

Nothing happens.

So this is all I can give you,

not being the maker of what I do,

but only the one that holds the pencil.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.

Make of it what you will.

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.

© 2010 by Mary Oliver
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

14 13 12 11 10      8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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 Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Oliver, Mary,
Swan : poems and prose poems / Mary Oliver.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-8070-6899-1 (alk. paper)
E-ISBN 978-0-8070-6901-1
I. Title.
PS3565.L5S93 2010
811’.54—dc22    2010009191