For me, reaching for a book of poems and reading a melodic string of words that conjure nature images, sounds and textures is a form of prayer. Reading poets who write about the natural world is my way of seeking comfort when solace is hard to come by. Like nature itself, poems with descriptive, evocative, and metaphorical references to nature offer me a space in which to restore.
It is the rhythmic phrasing describing the natural world – shaking aspen trees, dew on a spider web, shape of shade under a leafing tree—and my imagined relationship to them—that lifts the weight in my heart and the clutter in my head. If only just a little bit. It is the works of such poets as Mary Oliver that instill faith and the belief that life—like the cycle of seasons—will bring renewal.
In the wake of the terrorist bombings that occurred at the Boston Marathon, Monday, and in honor of the men, women and children who lost their lives, and others who suffered grave injuries, I offer this Mary Oliver poem—and prayer:
This World
I would like to write a poem about the world that has in it
nothing fancy.
But it seems impossible.
Whatever the subject, the morning sun
glimmers it.
The tulip feels the heat and flaps its petals open and becomes a star.
The ants bore into the peony bud and there is a dark
pinprick well of sweetness.
As for the stones on the beach, forget it.
Each one could be set in gold.
So I tried with my eyes shut, but of course the birds
were singing.
And the aspen trees were shaking the sweetest music
out of their leaves.
And that was followed by, guess what, a momentous and
beautiful silence
as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too
hurried to hear it.
As for spiders, how the dew hangs in their webs
even if they say nothing, or seem to say nothing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe they sing.
So fancy is the world, who knows, maybe the stars sing too,
and the ants, and the peonies, and the warm stones,
so happy to be where they are, on the beach, instead of being
locked up in gold.
—Mary Oliver
from Why I Wake Early