“A Voice from I Don’t Know Where”

It seems you love this world very much.

“Yes,” I said, “This beautiful world.”

 

And you don’t mind the mind, that keeps you

busy all the time with its dark and bright wanderings?

“No. I’m quite used to it. Busy, busy

all the time.”

 

And you don’t mind living with those questions,

I mean the hard ones, that no one can answer.

“Actually, they’re the most interesting.”

 

And you have a person in your life whose hand

you like to hold?

“Yes, I do.”

 

It must surely, then, be very happy down there

in your heart.

“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

 

Mary Oliver, “Moliver,” from  Felicity

On the first day of National Poetry Month, I knew this would be the poem I offered on the last day. Though there are other favorites from other poets, this was the note I wanted to end on. It is the last poem in Moliver’s collection, Felicity, as well, so I’d like to think I’m using it as the author intended, as a final summation and quiet reflection on her life. It’s a subtle poem, a simple series of questions and responses, but that’s what I like about it.

One of my favorite things about poetry is how gems like this one can slip by unnoticed on a first, second, or even tenth reading. Though I try not to collect books, (Tim may disagree), I tend to keep poetry around me. What I pass by one day, can bring me to tears on another. So if you find a poet, or a collection you like, keep it. Read it over a period of time: months, years, or decades even. It will always be new, because you are always new. One of my habits is to scribble the date on which I “fell in love” with a poem in the margin. I may not always be “in love” with it, but it honors the part of me that was and what I learned from it at the time.

I’ve heard from many of you that poetry is not your favorite, that you “don’t get it,” but that over the past month, these little reflections have helped you engage with it in a new way. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me! Poetry can be challenging to read and difficult to understand, but most things worth our time are also challenging and difficult, and ultimately enrich our lives.

Marriage, parenting, family, community-building, spirituality, engineering, physics, politics – they matter and most of the time, we “don’t get it” right the first or second time, but we try again and again. Poetry is something I’ve added to that list of “worth my time,” as a meditative practice and calming influence at the end, or beginning of a busy day.  Here are some tips.

When I read it, I try not to get frustrated; I let it wash over me, once, twice, a third time.

What do I notice? What line do I like? What pushed me away? Is there even one thing I can understand?

And then I let it go. I will be drawn back to it, or not. No problem either way.

My favorite moment is when I realize that a poet, (though not every poet,) writing five years, decades, or even centuries ago, had access to my heart, which is of course the universal heart. Their hopes are my hopes; their fears my own. We are asking the same questions, celebrating the same joys and suffering the same losses. We are not so different after all and if nothing else, I hope this month of poetry showed you that.