Mary Oliver

I didn't know much about her while she was alive. Now that she has died, poems of hers are appearing on the Internet and I like some of them.

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.

Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”

washing and cleaning

I've been watching the pillow go round and round in the washing machine. It's the first time I've washed it in . . . forever. I am starting to worry about Ellie's parents staying here and finding it wanting. So what? I ask myself, in my rational moments. They will have a free place to stay in a very expensive city. But still, I have been adding to my stock of sheets and I bought an electric blanket for the bed. I will clean and fret in the days before we leave.

And then we will be in India, amid unfamiliar people and things. I find it impossible to imagine that transition, as I always do before a trip.

The pillow doesn't look all that different now that it has gone through the wash. But here's hoping it smells and feels better.

Yeats for a cloudy Sunday

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

 

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

 

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire a-flame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And some one called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

 

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.