Don’t you dare climb that tree
or even try, they said, or you will be
sent way to the hospital of the
very foolish, if not the other one.
And I suppose, considering my age,
it was fair advice.
But the tree is a sister to me, she
lives alone in a green cottage
high in the air and I know what
would happen, she’d clap her green hands,
she’d shake her green hair, she’d
welcome me. Truly.
I try to be good but sometimes
a person just has to break out and
act like the wild and springy thing
one used to be. It’s impossible not
to remember wild and not want to go back. So
if someday you can’t find me you might
look into that tree or—of course
it’s possible—under it.
– Mary Oliver, “Green, Green is My Sister’s House,” from A Thousand Mornings (Penguin Press, 2012)
Full of thought, regret, hope dashed or not dashed yet,
full of memory, pride, and more than enough
of spilled, personal grief,
I begin another page, another poem.
So many notions fill the day! I give them
gowns of words, sometimes I give them
little shoes that rhyme.
What an elite life!
While somewhere someone is kissing a face that is crying.
While somewhere women are walking out, at two in the morning –
many miles to find water.
While somewhere a bomb is getting ready to explode.
“This Day, and Probably Tomorrow Also” by Mary Oliver, via Red Bird: Poems, Beacon Press.
***
Today marks Day One of National Poetry Month. I have some great pieces lined up for the month (and beyond) including some of your own suggestions (thank you, more please!); I think you’ll like them. Thank you everyone for your patience. It’s nice to be back. ~Christy
It seems fitting to endpause our journey as we began it two years ago . . . with Mary Oliver. Thank you all for an enriching and rewarding two years, and for choosing to spend your days with us.
Words for the Year will be back after a short break. I’m planning an April 1 return, just in time for the twentieth anniversary of National Poetry Month, though we may be back sooner. We may even have a few surprises lined up for you in the interim.
If you have a favorite poem you’d like to see featured on Words for the Year, please let me know via the contact page or on our recent post, “On the Future of Words for the Year.” Hopefully we can share it with our readers.
Thank you for your support, your interest, and your words. ~ Christy
***
The Journey
by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to 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,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
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 you could save.
Words ... for the Time Being 