Red Bird, Mary Oliver

Now in her early 70's, Mary Oliver has just delivered one of her best collections of poetry: Red Bird. Not since the Dream Works collection, which included the poem Wild Geese, have I been so moved by her work. Perhaps, in part, it has something to do with the profound personal loss of recent years now coming to rest more acceptably as a balanced, continuing part of who she is. Perhaps, in part, it is the fire of her new-found faith now more a comforting warmth and also a more balanced, continuing part of her life. In Thirst, both these events appeared to dominate her life, and the cathartic, emotional overflow seemed to compromise, perhaps, or at least change the content and style of her art in that work.

But now, layering her new sense of age and mortality onto her loss and her faith, a new maturity seems to have emerged in this work. Her observations of Blackwater Pond, its inhabitants and environs, are still as keen and insightful and assuring as ever. But she now encounters God's creation through her work in the same way that many of us always have, and references to creation's Authorship, direction and Purpose, to the eternal signature of God's hand on the beginnings and endings, the cycles of birth and death, are now gracefully interwoven into the content and natural style of her art. Yes, death is more on her mind. And now, on a few occasions—but often enough, and quite clearly and directly—she registers her concerns, her lament, for a threatened environment and for the lives needlessly lost in places like Iraq. It is all the Mary Oliver we love, but in a new season of life.

Here's one of many favorites:

Mornings at Blackwater

For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond.
it was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
the feet of ducks.

And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.

What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.

So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.
And live your life.