Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
– verse from the poem Summer Day – Mary Oliver
On the occasion of World Poetry Day celebrated on 21 March, as declared by UNESCO in 1999, “with the aim of supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression and increasing the opportunity for endangered languages to be heard” we will recall several poems by one of the most famous American poets who found inspiration for her poetry in nature.
Mary Oliver won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for the poetry collection American Primitive and the National Book Award for Poetry for the collection New and Selected Poems. Her poems are filled with her lifelong habit of solitary walks. Her poems speak of her love for life, which comes from a deep connection and admiration for the nature that surrounds her. The next time you find yourself surrounded by nature, maybe you will recall one of her verses.
As March 21 marks the International Day of Forests, her poem Sleeping in the Forest evokes the richness of forest life, and by reading these verses, apart from wanting to spend the night in the forest, we can understand why it is important to protect forests.
Sleeping in the Forest
I thought the earth
remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
(https://artistic.umn.edu/sleeping-forest-poem-mary-oliver )
–
Poppies
The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation
of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn’t a place
in this world that doesn’t
sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage
shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,
black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.
But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,
when it’s done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,
touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—
and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?
(https://readalittlepoetry.com/2012/11/03/poppies-by-mary-oliver/ )
–
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
(https://readalittlepoetry.com/2010/04/28/wild-geese-by-mary-oliver/ )
–
Author:
Mia Vučevac, mag. iur.
Professional Associate at the Department of Environmental Law, Policy and Economics