The Mangroves
As I said before, I am living now
in a warm place, surrounded by
mangroves. Mostly I walk beside
them, they discourage entrance.
The black oaks and the pines
of my northern home are in my heart,
even as I hear them whisper, “Listen,
we are trees too.” Okay, I’m trying. They
certainly put on an endless performance
of leaves. Admiring is easy, but affinity,
that does take some time. So many
and so leggy and all of them rising as if
attempting to escape this world which, don’t
they know it, can’t be done. “Are you
trying to fly or what?” I ask, and they
answer back, “We are what we are, you
are what you are, love us if you can.”
by Mary Oliver
This poem helped me so much when I was new to Florida and homesick for the northern forests. I wonder how many people she touched and comforted with her "not so fancy" poetry?
I originally used this poem in a post called Affinity as a Euphemism for Belonging that I posted in 2015 when I was homesick and lonely. I had not yet learned to write shorter posts or stick to a single theme. It wears me out going back and reading it. Now I could get three posts out of that one. If we are lucky, we live and learn like Mary Oliver. Rest in Peace, poet.
Sad news today, indeed. I loved her voice. And I read this poem the other way round, when I had returned from living on a tropical place where my child played hide and seek in the mangroves below the house.
ReplyDeleteSo interesting! But still the same.
DeleteWhat we learn by writing and watching. Because of y'all, I learned to stay on topic (mostly), make it interesting and make it 500 words. I watch my margins, too. Kidding.
ReplyDeleteHa! Margins be damned!
DeleteA loving post.
ReplyDeleteShe is easy to love.
DeleteI didn't realize she had died. The world has lost a great one.
ReplyDeleteTruly.
DeleteMary Oliver had such a big place in my heart too. So very sad to lose her wonderful voice.
ReplyDeleteI don't recall ever reading The Mangroves before. I remember their strange beauty when kayaking around them in the Keys one vacation and just smiled reading the line "are you trying to fly, or what?" Ms. Oliver did have a special way of seeing the natural world.
She really did.
DeleteIt broke my heart yesterday when I read that Mary Oliver had died. Her poems spoke to me like the voice of a beloved teacher.
ReplyDeleteI believe she was a beloved teacher, to so many
DeleteI will definitely miss Mary Oliver, but she sure left us some amazing works. It's been interesting, since her death, to see how many people know her work and love it. A lot of less accessible, but perhaps more academically admired, poets can't say the same! I for one never saw any shortcomings in Oliver's work. I think the fact that her poetry was so effective and yet so accessible makes her a truly great poet.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Some art is for the masses. Some is for academia. Both serve a purpose. Hers reached more people, I think.
DeleteI loved how she celebrated nature in her poetry.
ReplyDeleteMe, too. I have been reading your blog. I can't quite figure out how to comment, tho. Your blog seems to require signing in to various other formats before a comment can be written. Any advice?
DeleteLovely post. Thank you for sharing Ms. Oliver's work. I'm loving seeing her work through the eyes of many.
ReplyDeleteYes. Like Steve says above "It's been interesting, since her death, to see how many people know her work and love it."
DeleteAnd still no comment for the June 17 2015 post, a lot of it about bikes. For shame on all of us out there or here. But you've diagnosed your problem: too profligate. Enough raw material for half a dozen posts.
ReplyDeleteTake heart. You appear to have grown younger during the ensuing years. Age, you moaned then, "snuck up on me" It gave you a turkey neck. Oh pish. You could be sitting in a wheel-chair wondering what use was made of the two legs taken away because of the depradations of diabetes 2. Or is it diabetes 1? Being able to distinguish between the two is not necessarily healthy knowledge. You are sunnier now.
In youth I toured Britain's youth hostels on a bike, often covering close to a hundred miles a day. Then I acquired a car and goodbye two wheels. A rail strike occurred and I thought: why not go to work on the bike we sort of accidentally won in a raffle. Work's only twenty-five miles away, a mere potter. But I hadn't allowed for the passage of thirty years. The ride took nearly two hours and my backside felt as if I'd auditioned for a starring role in Deliverance. Came home shamefully on the train (strike now over), bestriding the saddle very carefully.
Have you ever thought you are cleverer now than you were then? More forgetive, as Falstaff says. A better conversational style. And you've still got enough elbow-room to be an outlaw, if being an outlaw is having Marxist thoughts and not setting fire to old tyres and stinking out the place.
Hey, I'd never met the phrase Conch Republic before. As the Michelin guide says about a good restaurant: Il vaut le voyage? (Worth the trip.) Glad I travelled back and discovered Hawaiian print fenders.
I enjoyed this! I'm so happy I still have enough elbow room to be an outlaw. That is SO important to me. Cheers, Robbie.
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