If I ever need to be delighted with language, art, heart, earth, hearth, I only need to read a Mary Oliver poem. Here are excerpts of four of her poems from her 2014 book Blue Horses, and some images from Scotland. Choosing only a few lines from a poem fails to convey all its wonder and craft, so it’s best to get the book and read the whole.
Glencoe stream
Stebin’s Gulch
by the randomness
of the way
the rocks tumbled
ages ago
the water pours
it pours
it pours
ever along the slant
. . . .
as for purpose
there is none,
it is simply
one of those gorgeous things
that was made
to do what it does perfectly
and to last,
as almost nothing does,
almost forever.
Loch Ness trail
Drifting
I was enjoying everything: the rain, the path
wherever it was taking me, the earth roots
beginning to stir.
I didn’t intend to start thinking about God,
it just happened.
How God, or the gods, are invisible,
quite understandable.
But holiness is visible, entirely.
. . . .
Iona shoreline
Do Stones Feel?
Do stones feel?
Do they love their life?
Or does their patience drown out everything else?
When I walk on the beach I gather a few
white ones, dark ones, the multiple colors.
Don’t worry, I say, I’ll bring you back, and I do.
. . . .
Island of Mull
Franz Marc’s Blue Horses
. . . .
I don’t know how to thank you, Franz Marc.
Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually.
Maybe the desire to make something beautiful
is the piece of God that is inside each of us.
Now all four horses have come closer,
are bending their faces toward me
as if they have secrets to tell.
I don’t expect them to speak, and they don’t.
If being so beautiful isn’t enough, what
could they possibly say?