Mary Oliver's Journey

Mary Oliver

The poet Mary Oliver died yesterday at age 83.  She was wildly popular in some circles and vilified in a couple of others.  But my guess is that most people never heard of her because she was - you know - a poet!

After my husband, Ken, died I was a mess.  My life could have gone in an entirely different direction.  Then I started communicating with this man in Minnesota.   Early on he sent me a book - Ten Poems to Change Your Life.  The first poem was by Mary Oliver.  It changed my life.

On the surface the poem seems a bit selfish, but it's not.  It's about (as Mary would say) living your one wild precious life.

THE JOURNEY by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had t do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -

though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
 at the very foundations,
thought their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

Butt little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
and the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own
 that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,

determined to do
 the only thing you could do - 

determined to save
the only life that you could save. 


***