“Public opinion doesn’t usually move in staccato bursts,” writes Bill McKibben. “Culture usually shifts gradually—painfully gradually for those of us who want change. But, occasionally, attitudes swing quite suddenly, as if pressure had been silently building up behind a dam until it burst.” Consider for a moment how many build ups are bursting on this […]
Mary Oliver
- Aesthetics
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What the Soft Animal Loves
Atesse, from a recent series of paintings One aspect of having online access into every nook and cranny of the world (as well as the latest thoughts of millions of bloggers) is being able to see into the extraordinary range of human passions. I’m not referring to the largest engine of human cyber passion, pornography, […]
The Perfect, Stone-Hard Beauty
The Poet with His Face in His Hands You want to cry aloud for your mistakes. But to tell the truth the world doesn’t need anymore of that sound. So if you’re going to do it and can’t stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can’t hold it in, at least go by yourself across the […]
Mostly Standing Still
Agnes Martin Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. –Mary Oliver This came to me by way of Jill Fineberg, author of People I Sleep With. It captures the essence IMHO. […]
Marking our Passage
An unexpected gift on the Times Op-Ed page last Sunday, cohabiting with bleak post election columns by Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd: Six poems marking the end of daylight saving time. The work is all by blue chip poets—James Tate, Vijay Seshadri, Louise Glück, W. S. Merwin as well as the two whose poems I […]
The Nature of Happiness
Morning Poem Every morning the world is created. Under the orange sticks of the sun the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches — and the ponds appear like black cloth on which are painted islands of summer lilies. If it is your nature to be […]
To Live in this World
In Blackwater Woods Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment, the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is nameless now. Every […]
Glorious Impersonality
For several years now my Sunday mornings have begun with the anticipation of reading the weekly email from Andrew that arrives in my inbox around 7am. I have saved every one he has sent to me, and for good reason. Both he and his wife Kathryn, in addition to being two of the wisest and […]
Ups, and Downs
In my studio yesterday, I felt some of the old familiar feelings of “flow”, a sense of things that invariably calls up an unforgettable line from Mary Oliver: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” It’s a quiet place, that soft animal of my body right now. […]
The Intimate Interrupter
A few words on solitude, discipline and the nature of being interrupted, by Mary Oliver: It is a silver morning like any other. I am at my desk. Then the phone rings, or someone raps at the door. I am deep in the machinery of my wits. Reluctantly I rise, I answer the phone or […]