Felicity by Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver never fails to deliver just the poem I need when I need it. Just yesterday as I walked the dog outside I thought I felt a touch of impending spring in the air. Maybe I was mistaken. But then last night I heard the frogs in a nearby pond singing their early love song. It must be near. I'm not the only one looking for those early signs of spring.

I'm ready for spring, but it hasn't arrived.
                                   Not yet.
Still I take my walk, looking for any 
          early enhancements.
It's mostly attitude. I'm certain
                                  I'll see something.
                                                         (Excerpt from "Walking to Indian River")

Friday just as school let out for the weekend the sky opened up and it absolutely poured for about 20 minutes. Anyone who thinks they can master the weather has another think coming. Ms. Oliver seems to understand this.

Yesterday the wildest storm
I ever witnessed flew past
west to east, a shaggy
howling sky-beast

flinging hail even as lightning
printed out its sizzling
unreadable language
followed by terrible laughter.
                                             (Excerpt from "The Wildest Storm"

Her poems speak to my head and to my heart. I am a part of the world. I am made up of my memories. She asks,

What is your heart doing now?
     "Remembering. Remembering!"
                                             (Excerpt from "When Did It Happen?")

I don't want to lose a single thread
from the intricate brocade of this happiness,
I want to remember everything.
                                             (Excerpt from "I Don't Want to Lose")

Mary Oliver is my favorite poet, by far. So many of her poems seem to be just for me or speak to this better part which I hope is in me.  My praise here so inadequate in comparison to the wonder of the poems within. Yet Ms Oliver sees herself as just a conduit for the poetry.

Poem arrive ready to begin.
  Poets are only the transportation.
                                            (Humility)

I found myself crying a little as I read a few of these poems not because they were sad but I felt my mortality and the mortality of this wonderful poet.

Pick up this small volume and enjoy every poem within. Who knows maybe you, too, will fall in love (with poems.) At least I know you, too, will be moved.