In 'More Honey Locust' she reminds me to prayerful and thankful for all the world has to hold:

And who else could this be, who goes off / down the green path, / carrying his sandals, and singing? (15) Of course I am thinking / the Lord was once young / and will never in fact be old. 'Spring' she reminds us of the creator: Faith / is the instructor. Usually Oliver's poems point us to beauty of nature but all of them cause us to reflect on our lives. (9)īut in 'Then Bluebird Sang' she helps us remember to awaken every morning to the joys of nature.The birds, the brook, ' and the rustle / that greet me whereever I go / with their joyful cry: I'm still here, alive!' (12) In 'Thinking of Swirler' Oliver reminds us that even with the best of intentions, one's life is precious: In my house these are a hundred half-done poems. My husband and I even filled out medical advanced directive statements recently. I've been thinking about end-of-life scenarios because of all the deaths due to COVID-10 these days. It always seems that Oliver is talking about one thing when suddenly she is talking about something much broader and more universal like this in the poem 'Swans': What we love, shapely and pure, / is not to be held, / but to be believed in. Parts of just about every poem spoke to me. Out of the haul I plucked this small volume of poems to read first, my soul felt just parched in need of a long drink of refreshment by my favorite poet. Apparently one mustn't sit at home during a pandemic and blithely place holds on all the library books one wants or they will all arrive at once. It was part of a big haul of books, totaling fifteen books in all. Evidence: Poems by Mary Oliver arrived in my car truck when the library started curbside checkouts last week.

The reed rivers trilogy