Saturday, June 30, 2012

Twin Studies: It's About Genetics--And More Than You May Think

From the Wall Street Journal:
If you harbor any curiosity about why people turn out the way they do, Ms. Segal's topic will fascinate. How big are the effects of nature, nurture and everything else? Despite ample jargon and abstruse statistics, the logic of the Minnesota study is simple. When identical twins are raised apart, you can disentangle nature and nurture for a given characteristic by simply measuring how similar the twins are. You can double-check your answer by comparing the similarity of identical twins (who share all their genes) and of fraternal twins (who share only half their genes).  
The Minnesota researchers tracked down every pair they could find—and measured traits related to almost every aspect of life: health, cognition, personality, happiness, career, creativity, politics, religion, sex and much more. The Minnesota study reveals genetic effects on virtually every trait. The breakdown between nature, nurture and everything else varies from trait to trait. But Ms. Segal emphasizes the uniformity of the results—the consistent power of genes, the limited influence of parenting. 
---"O Brother, Where Art Thou? (How genetic is that distinctive chuckle or curious disposition? Twins raised in separate homes offer a ready-made experiment.)" by Bryan Caplan, Wall Street Journal (6.20.2012)
It's mostly about our genetics. It is, whether we like that answer or not.

The article quoted is a review of a new book, Born Together—Reared Apart, by Nancy L. Segal, "a thorough history of the Minnesota study and the 137 pairs of star-crossed twins who made it possible." Ms. Segal was a key member of the Minnesota research team.

Twin studies are not new. And the Minnesota study results have been around more than two decades. Even when I was an undergraduate, there was evidence and discussion about identitical twin studies and the implication of a greater influence by our individual genetic profile. Predictably, I suppose, the foundational interests of my undergraduate career were formed around a major in psychology (with a focus on operant and classical conditioning) and a minor in biology (with a focus on genetics).

For me, it's been a life long interest and quest to better understand identity, the things that make us who we are. And that comes down to the questions of "nature vs. nurture," how much of who we are is a function of our genetic endowment, and how much is a function of our family and cultural conditioning, our learning and experience. And for me, at least, I must add matters of spirituality and faith to nature and nurture in that quest for understanding identity. (And interestingly, studies of the genome have also found aspects of spirituality or faith to be influenced by our genes.)

Lets take a quick look at some of the more detailed findings and issues growing out of the Minnesota study:
Some findings go down easy: As most would expect, identical twins raised apart have virtually identical heights as adults. Some findings seem obvious after the fact: Genes, but not upbringing, have a pretty big effect on personality traits like ambition, optimism, aggression and traditionalism. Other findings perennially cause outrage: The IQs of separated identical twins are almost as similar as their heights. Critics of intelligence research often hail the importance of practice rather than inborn talent, but a three-day test of the Minnesota twins' motor skills showed that how much you benefit from practice is itself partly an inborn talent. 
The Minnesota study's IQ results hit a nerve years before their publication in 1990, overshadowing other controversies that might have been. Many of its findings are bipartisan shockers. Take religion, which almost everyone attributes to "socialization." Separated-twin data show that religiosity has a strong genetic component, especially in the long run: "Parents had less influence than they thought over their children's religious activities and interests as they approached adolescence and adulthood." The key caveat: While genes have a big effect on how religious you are, upbringing has a big effect on the brand of religion you accept. Identical separated sisters Debbie and Sharon "both liked the rituals and formality of religious services and holidays," even though Debbie was a Jew and Sharon was a Christian.
Nonetheless, I've always been inclined to be respectful of the power of the family and culture to shape our behavior as well. And about seven years ago, I wrote about the determinism of both nature and nuture, and the quest to find something like freedom and choice in directing or shaping--redirecting or reshaping--our lives or some behaviors, at least, if not our identity. (This link will take you to that essay titled, "Choices.")

But research like this reported in the Minnesota study suggests that the role of nurture, the power of our surroundings, are more limited, shaping our behavior more at the margins or possibly only for a time. Another study I reported not long ago found more specifically that the role of parents in shaping their children's personality or behavior is limited. It found that within about five years of being fully independent of their parents, children move more toward the people, traits and behaviors that their genetic endowment dictates or predisposes them toward. (So, don't be so hard on yourself, Mom and Dad!)

There are exceptions, of course. Particularly dramatic experiences--and especially longer-term abusive situations--can have enduring effects on an individual's personality, temperament or behavior. Then there are the so-called "orchid children" whose personalities and temperaments are so fragile that a negative (but not necessarily abusive) family situation can result in disfunctional individuals, whereas a particularly supportive and affirming family situation can reveal an extraordinarily talented and well-adjust individual. But for most of us, it appears, the philosophy or approach of our parents in rearing us does not dictate who we are likely to become nearly as much as we thought.

It's worth reading the rest of the article if the topic interests you, and maybe even the book:
Mr. Caplan, a professor of economics at George Mason University, is the author of "Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent Is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think."

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Affordable Care Act Upheld on Roberts' Vote, Standard of Review

Today the U.S. Supreme Court reported that it upheld the Affordable Care Act's principal provisions, 5-4. More, the result was achieved only through the wholly unexpected acts of conservative Chief Justice Roberts in casting the deciding vote to uphold, and writing the majority opinion. In the process, and citing foundational constitutional law cases,  he set out a principled, wise and, yes, wholly conservative, standard of judicial review. Paraphrasing, he said it is not his job to search for reasons to overturn legislation, but rather, to find reasons to uphold the constitutionality of Congress' legislative process and its prerogatives whenever those reasons are present.

The legislative process of Congress is the process that most directly represents the will of the people. They are, after all, the people's directly elected representatives. The Supreme Court's charge is to protect the nation from its representatives only when they act or legislate in a way for which there is no consititutional support. Otherwise, where constitutional support can be found, deference is owed to the legislative process and prerogatives of the Congress. And on the key issue of the "individual mandate" to buy health insurance or pay a penalty characterized as a tax and payable to the IRS, he found sufficient constitutional support in the federal taxing power.

In the totality of his decision and work on this case, many also see a responsible attempt to restore more judicial discipline, decorum, and respect to the Supreme Court, which over the last decade or so has drifted further and further into partisan disagreement and intemperate opinions. They say that John Roberts has arrived as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, that he has proved a principled jurist, yes, but more, has restored principled leadership to the chair of the Chief Justice. I hope that assessement is true.

Here is the authority for the standard of judicial review cited and discussed by Chief Justice Roberts in the introduction to his opinion:
The reach of the Federal Government’s enumerated powers is broader still because the Constitution authorizes Congress to "make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers. "Art. I, §8, cl. 18. We have long read this provision to give Congress great latitude in exercising its powers: "Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional."
McCulloch, 4 Wheat., at 421.
Our permissive reading of these powers is explained in part by a general reticence to invalidate the acts of the Nation’s elected leaders. "Proper respect for a co-ordinate branch of the government" requires that we strike down an Act of Congress only if "the lack of constitutional authority to pass [the] act in question is clearly demonstrated."
United States v. Harris, 106 U. S. 629, 635 (1883). 
Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices. 
Our deference in matters of policy cannot, however, become abdication in matters of law. "The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the constitution is written." Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 176 (1803). Our respect for Congress’s policy judgments thus can never extend so far as to disavow restraints on federal power that the Constitution carefully constructed. "The peculiar circumstances of the moment may render a measure more or less wise, but cannot render it more or less constitutional." Chief Justice John Marshall, A Friend of the Constitution No. V, Alexandria Gazette, July 5, 1819, in John Marshall’s Defense of McCulloch v. Maryland 190–191 (G. Gunther ed. 1969). And there can be no question that it is the responsibility of this Court to enforce the limits on federal power by striking down acts of Congress that transgress those limits. Marbury v. Madison, supra, at 175–176.
The questions before us must be considered against the background of these basic principles.
Sounds right to me.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Presidential Politics & America's 11 Regional Cultures

From The Chronicle Review:
The real founders—early-17th-century Puritans and Dutch West India Company officials, mid-17th-century English aristocrats, late-17th-century West Indian slave lords and English Quakers, early-18th-century frontiersmen from Ulster and the lowlands of Scotland and so on—didn't create an America, they created several Americas. 
[...] Only when London began treating its American colonies as a single unit—and enacted policies threatening to nearly all—did some of these distinct societies briefly come together to win a war of liberation and create a joint government. Nearly all of them would seriously consider leaving this new union in the 80-year period after the Battle of Yorktown; two of the cultures went to war to do so in the 1860s.  
Recognizing these centuries-old cultures makes our history a lot easier to understand (see related story, below). The fault lines appear on the county-level maps of most closely contested presidential elections, and in recent Congressional debates over health-care reform, financial-industry regulation, and the debt ceiling. 
Which brings us back to this election cycle. The recent primaries demonstrate that America's most essential and abiding divisions are not between red states and blue states, conservatives and liberals, capital and labor, blacks and whites, the faithful and the secular. Rather, our divisions stem from this fact: The United States is a federation comprised of the whole or part of 11 regional nations, shown in the map [linked to article below]. Some of them truly do not see eye-to-eye with one another, and despite the rise of Wal-Mart, Starbucks, and the Internet, there is little indication that they are melting into some sort of unified American culture. 
---"Running for President on a Divided Continent," by Colin Woodward, The Chronicle Review (of The Chronicle of Higher Education) (6.25.2012)
Too many of us too often invoke the names and views of one "founding father" or another--but only in the way we prefer to understand them and use them in pursuit of our own purposes. And, as often as not, our purposes are not so much to find and share enduring governing wisdom as to promote and spread our own political or social views. And that occurs everywhere those various, often differing opinions exist. The problem in the understanding and analysis--as this author points out--is complicated by the number of different views and interests reflected in a number of different American regional cultures. And whether he has the right number of regional cultures, whether they are identified and described as accurately as we might like, and whether the full implications of each are fairly represented, are not so important as the fact that he has advanced greater sophistication in our thinking about the realities and impact of regional cultures on the strategies and processes for presidential campaigns.

This is an interesting and provocative article. The premise is not new, of course; we all understand it and have experienced it on some level. Americans representing different geographical areas of the U.S. often also represent different national, ethnic and religious origins--different historical roots--which exert different influences on their political and social views. And even if we have not fully understood it all, we've read of how the insight of political operatives like Karl Rove--and now many others--have analyzed at some level these kinds of regional differences and plotted national campaign strategies to exploit them. But this article and the linked information about these different areas and people add depth and breadth to our understanding. 

More, by example, the article offers analysis of the impact of these regional factors on three primary candidates for the Republican nomination (Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich), and then ventures a prediction of a close race for the presidency between Romney and President Obama based on a similar analysis. Very interesting. Yes, this article is really just a teaser to interest us in the author's newest book, but it nonetheless offers the basic thinking and major points of the book. (Mission accomplished; I may have to read it.)

But likely inaccessable to nonsubscribers is the link to the author's "11 Rival Regional Cultures of North America," which I provide here:


         The 11 Rival Regional Cultures of North America

         [Link here to larger version of the map.]
Yankeedom: Founded on the shores of Massachusetts Bay by radical Calvinists as a new Zion, this region since the outset has emphasized perfecting earthly society through social engineering, individual self-denial for the common good, and the aggressive assimilation of outsiders. It has prized education, intellectual achievement, community (rather than individual) empowerment, and broad citizen participation in politics and government, the latter seen as the public's shield against the machinations of grasping aristocrats, corporations, and other tyrannies. Today it is closely allied with the Left Coast and New Netherland. 
New Netherland: Established by the Dutch at a time when the Netherlands was the most sophisticated society in the western world, it has displayed its salient characteristics throughout its history: a global commercial trading culture—multi-ethnic, multireligious, materialistic—with a profound tolerance for diversity and an unflinching commitment to the freedom of inquiry and conscience. Like 17th-century Amsterdam, it emerged as a leading global center of publishing, trade, and finance, a magnet for immigrants, and a refuge for those persecuted by other regional cultures. 
Midlands: America's great swing region was founded by English Quakers, who believed in humanity's inherent goodness and welcomed people of many nations and creeds to their utopian colonies on the shores of Delaware Bay. Pluralistic and organized around the middle class, the Midlands spawned the culture of the heartland, where ethnic and ideological purity have never been a priority, government has been seen as an unwelcome intrusion, and political opinion has been moderate, even apathetic. An ethnic mosaic from the start—it had a German, rather than British majority, at the time of the Revolution—the region shares the Yankee belief that society should be organized to benefit ordinary people, but it rejects top-down government intervention. 
Tidewater: Built by the younger sons of southern English gentry, it was meant to reproduce the semifeudal manorial society of the countryside they'd left behind, where economic, political, and social affairs were run by and for landed aristocrats. Tidewater has always been fundamentally conservative, with great value placed on respect for authority and tradition, and very little on equality or public participation in politics. The most powerful region in the 17th and 18th centuries, today it is in decline, having been boxed out of westward expansion by its boisterous Appalachian neighbors and, more recently, eaten away by the expanding Midlands. 
Greater Appalachia: It was founded in the early 18th century by wave upon wave of rough, bellicose settlers from the war-ravaged borderlands of Northern Ireland, northern England, and the Scottish lowlands, whose culture included a warrior ethic and deep commitments to personal sovereignty and individual liberty. Intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers alike, Appalachia has shifted alliances on the basis of whoever appeared to be the greatest threat to its freedom; since Reconstruction it has been in alliance with the Deep South in an effort to undo the federal government's ability to overrule local preferences. 
Deep South: Established by slave lords from Barbados as a West Indies-style slave society, this region has been a bastion of white supremacy, aristocratic privilege, and a version of classical Republicanism modeled on the slave states of the ancient world, where democracy was the privilege of the few and enslavement the natural lot of the many. Its slave and caste systems smashed by outside intervention, it continues to fight for rollbacks of federal power, cuts in taxes on capital and the wealthy, and weakened environmental, labor, and consumer-safety protections. 
El Norte: Most Americans are aware that the Spanish-founded borderlands are a place apart, where Hispanic language, culture, and societal norms dominate; few realize that among Mexicans, norteƱos have a reputation for being more independent, self-sufficient, adaptable, and work-centered than their central and southern countrymen. Long a hotbed of democratic reform and revolutionary settlement, various parts of the region have tried to secede from Mexico to form independent buffer states. Today the region resembles Germany during the cold war: two peoples with a common culture separated from each other by a large wall. 
Left Coast: Originally colonized by two groups: on the one hand, merchants, missionaries, and woodsmen from New England (who arrived by sea and dominated the towns), and on the other, farmers, prospectors, and fur traders from Greater Appalachia (who generally arrived by wagon and controlled the countryside.), the Left Coast is a hybrid of Yankee idealism, faith in good government and social reform, and the Appalachian commitment to individual self-expression and exploration. The staunchest ally of Yankeedom and greatest champion of environmentalism, it battles constantly against Far Western sections in the interior of its home states. 
Far West: It's the one part of the continent where environmental factors have trumped ethnographic ones. High, dry, and remote, the Far West stopped the eastern regions in their tracks and, with minor exceptions, was colonized only via the deployment of vast industrial resources by distant corporations and the federal government. Exploited as an internal colony for the benefit of the seaboard regions, the Far West has oscillated between anticorporate populism and antigovernment conservatism. 
Two other nations—Inuit-dominated First Nation, in the far North, and Quebec-centered New France—are located primarily in Canada, although they control parts of Alaska and Louisiana, respectively. 

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

"Puttin' On the Ritz" - Moscow Style

I don't know exactly what it is about flash mobs that are so fun and uplifting. Maybe the appearance of spontaneity--or at least the wholly unexpected, welcome and joyful uplifting of the spirit. Anyway, I love them. And this one from Russia via youtube and friend Alan P. is the largest, most intricate and invloved I've ever seen. Enjoy.



And to think that in 2012 young folks in Moscow would put on a flash mob dancing and singing, acrobats, wedding party and all, to an 83 year old American song written by Irving Berlin, a Russian-born American Jew. A long time coming, but it rekindles hope. And doesn't hope always fall to the new generation?

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Mary Oliver's "Thirst": A New Appreciation

When Mary Oliver's Red Bird collection of poetry was first published, I declared it one of her very best, and took the occasion to distinguish it from her prior collection, Thirst. It's not that I didn't appreciate Thirst's unique, but serious inspirations, or the unqualified fullness of her emotions expressed. That's what it was all about. And what could be more emotionally evocative than the devastating loss of her long-time partner, and finding her way to a Christian faith? Though a Christian of a type myself, and deeply attentive to where that takes me, I thought this work reflected more of her raw emotions, but less of her talent and art. While it marked a watershed point in her life, I didn't think it her best work. But I was wrong.

Now, I too am in a place of loss and change, and continue to turn corners in my own faith journey and prayer life. Now I have found poems in Thirst* that speak to me in ways I could not hear before. And they surely reflect well her talent and art as they offer touching and moving verse, and emotions that reveal her in broader, deeper, more human terms, with qualities and authority that compel me to spend more time with them. Now, in this time and place, they speak to me with power.


            When the Roses Speak,
               I Pay Attention 

            "As long as we are able to
            be extravagant we will be
            hugely and damply
            extravagant. Then we will drop
            foil by foil to the ground. This
            is our unalterable task, and we do it
            joyfully."

            And they went on. "Listen,
            the heart-shackles are not, as you think,
            death, illness, pain,
            unrequited hope, not loneliness, but

            lassitude, rue, vainglory, fear, anxiety,
            selfishness."

            Their fragrance all the while rising
            from their blind bodies, making me
            spin with joy.


                After Her Death

            I am trying to find the lesson
            for tomorrow. Matthew something.
            Which lectionary? I have not
            forgotten the Way, but, a little,
            the way to the Way. The trees keep whispering
            peace, peace, and the birds
            in the shallows are full of the
            bodies of small fish and are
            content. They open their wings
            so easily, and fly. So. It is still
            possible.

                        I open the book
            which the strange, difficult, beautiful church
            has given me. To Matthew. Anywhere.


              Percy (Four)

            I went to church.
            I walked on the beach
            and played with Percy.

            I answered the phone
            and paid the bills.
            I did the laundry.

            I spoke her name
            a hundred times.

            I knelt in the dark
            and said some holy words.

            I went downstairs,
            I watered the flowers,
            I fed Percy.


                  Heavy

            That time
            I thought I could not
            go any closer to grief
            without dying

            I went closer
            and I did not die.
            Surely God
            had his hand in all this,

            as well as friends.
            Still, I was bent,
            and my laughter,    
            as the poet said,

            was nowhere to be found.
            Then said my friend Daniel
            (brave even among lions),
            "It's not the weight you carry

            but how you carry it--
            books, bricks, grief--
            it's all in the way
            you embrace it, balance it, carry it

            when you cannot, and would not,
            put it down."
            So I went practicing.
            Have you noticed?

            Have you heard
            the laughter
            that comes, now and again,
            out of my startled mouth?

            How I linger
            to admire, admire, admire
            the things of this world
            that are kind, and maybe

            also troubled---
            roses in the wind,
            the sea geese on the steep waves,
            a love
            to which there is no reply?


               A Pretty Song

            From the complications of loving you
            I think there is no end or return.
            No answer, no coming out of it.

            Which is the only way to love, isn't it?
            This isn't a playground, this is
            earth, our heaven, for awhile.

            Therefore I have given precedence
            to all my sudden, sullen, dark moods
            that hold you in the center of my world.

            And I say to my body: grow thinner still.
            And I say to my fingers, type me a pretty song.
            And I say to my heart: rave on.


              Doesn't Every Poet Write
          a Poem About Unrequited Love

            The flowers
                I wanted to bring you,
                    wild and wet
                        from the pale dunes

            and still smelling
                of the summer night,
                    and still holding a moment or two
                        of the night cricket's

            humble prayer,
                would have been
                    so handsome
                        in your hands--

            so happy--I dare to say it--
                in your hands--
                    yet your smile
                        would have been nowhere

            and maybe you would have tossed them
                onto the ground,
                    or maybe, for tenderness,
                        you would have taken them

            into your house
                and given them water
                    put them in a dark corner
                        out of reach.

             In matters of love
                of this kind
                    there are things we long to do
                         but must not do.

            I would not want to see
                your smile diminished.
                    And the flowers, anyway,
                        are happy just where they are,

            on the pale dunes,
                above the cricket's humble nest,
                    under the blue sky
                        that loves us all.


            Six Recognitions of the Lord

            1.
            I know a lot of fancy words.
            I tear them from my heart and my tongue.
            Then I pray.

            2.
            Lord God, mercy is in your hands, pour
            me a little. And tenderness, too. My
            need is great. Beauty walks so freely
            and with such gentleness. Impatience puts
            a halter on my face and I run away over
            the green fields wanting your voice, your
            tenderness, but having to do with only
            the sweet grasses of the fields against
            my body. When I first found you I was
            filled with light, now the darkness grows
            and it is filled with crooked things, bitter
            and weak, each one bearing my name.

            3.
            I lounge on the grass, that's all. So
            simple. Then I lie back until I am
            inside the cloud that is just above me
            but very high, and shaped like a fish.
            Or, perhaps not. Then I enter the place
            of not-thinking, not-remembering, not-
            wanting. When the blue jay cries out his
            riddle, in his carping voice, I return.
            But I go back, the threshold is always
            near. Over and back, over and back. Then
            I rise. Maybe I rub my face as though I
            have been asleep. But I have not been
            asleep. I have been, as I say, inside
            the cloud, or, perhaps, the lily floating
            on the water. Then I go back to town,
            To my own house, my own life, which has
            now become brighter and simpler, some-
            where I have never been before.

            [...]

            5.
            Oh, feed me this day, Holy Spirit, with
            the fragrance of the fields and the
            freshness of the oceans which you have
            made, and help me to hear and to hold
            in all dearness those exacting and wonderful
            words of our Lord Christ Jesus, saying:
            Follow me.

            [...]


               Praying

             It doesn't have to be
            the blue iris, it could be
            weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
            small stones; just
            pay attention, then patch

            a few words together and don't try
            to make them elaborate, this isn't
            a contest but the doorway

            into thanks, and a silence in which
            another voice may speak.


           On Thy Wondrous Works I Will Meditate
            [...]

                                        7.
            I know a man of such
                mildness and kindness it is trying to
            change my life. He does not
                preach, teach, but simply is. It is
            astonishing, for he is Christ's ambassador
                truly, by rule and act. But more

            he is kind with the sort of kindness that shines
                out but is resolute, not fooled. He has
            eaten the dark hours and could also, I think,
                soldier for God, riding out
            under the storm clouds, against the world's pride and unkindness
                with both unassailable sweetness, and consoling word.

            [...]


                      Thirst  

            Another morning and I wake with thirst 
            for the goodness I do not have. I walk
            out to the pond and all the way God has
            given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,
            I was never a quick scholar but sulked
            and hunched over my books past the
            hour and the bell; grant me, in your
            mercy, a little more time. Love for the
            earth and love for you are having such a
            long conversation in my heart. Who
            knows what will finally happen or
            where I will be sent, yet already I have
            given a great many things away, expect-
            ing to be told to pack nothing, except the
            prayers which, with this thirst, I am
            slowly learning.


*Thirst, Poems by Mary Oliver (2006)

Friday, June 1, 2012

Mary Oliver: Now, As Much as Ever

In every season and circumstance, it seems, Mary Oliver's poetry speaks to me. I find new poems, or poems that didn't have so much to say to me, but now do. And this has often been true for her Red Bird collecton, one of my favorites.

In this season of loss and change, with the passing of my father and other corners now turned in my life, I found Red Bird* speaking to me anew. I found context and content that resonated with this time and place. On the off-chance they might also resonate with you, I thought I would share some of them here.


            The Orchard

         I have dreamed    
         of accomplishment.
         I have fed

         ambition.
         I have traded
         nights of sleep

         for a length of work.
         Lo, and I have discovered
         how soft bloom

         turns to green fruit
         which turns to sweet fruit.
         Lo, and I have discovered

         all winds blow cold
         at last,
         and the leaves,

         so pretty, so many,
         vanish
         in the great, black

         packet of time,
         in the great, black
         packet of ambition,

         and the ripeness    
         of the apple
         is its downfall.


               Straight Talk from Fox   

         Listen says fox, it is music to run
           over the hills to lick
         dew from the leaves to nose along
           the edges of the ponds to smell the fat
         ducks in their bright feathers but
           far out, safe in their rafts of
         sleep...Death itself
           is a music. Nobody has ever come close to
         writing it down, awake or in a dream. It cannot
           be told. It is flesh and bones
         changing shape and with good cause, mercy
           is a little child beside such an invention. It is
         music to wander the black back roads
           outside of town no one awake or wondering
         if anything miraculous is ever going to
           happen, totally dumb to the fact of every
         moment's miracle...


            Invitation

      Oh do you have time
           to linger
             for just a little while
               out of your busy

         and very important day
            for the goldfinches
              that have gathered
                in a field of thistles

        for a musical battle,
          to see who can sing
            the highest note,
              or the lowest...

        as they strive
          melodiously
            not for your sake
              and not for mine

        and not for the sake of winning
          but for sheer delight and gratitude--
            believe us, they say,
              it is a serious thing

        just to be alive    
          on this fresh morning
            in this broken world.
              I beg of you,

        do not walk by
          without pausing
            to attend to their
              rather ridiculous performance.

        It could mean something,
          It could mean everything.
            It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
             You must change your life.


                 Sometimes
                    4.
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it. 
                    5. 
Two or three times in my life I discovered love.
Each time it seemed to solve everything.
Each time it solved a great many things
  but not everything.
Yet left me as grateful as if it had indeed, and
thoroughly, solved everything. 
                  6.
God rest in my heart 
and fortify me.

                Of Love 
I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not. Sometimes
it was all but ephemeral, maybe only
an afternoon, but not less real for that.
They stay in  mind, these beautiful people,
or anyway beautiful to me, of which
there are so many...And, oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women
and some--now carry my revelation with you--
were trees. Or places. Or music flying above
the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun...
So I imagine such love in the world--
its fervency, its shining, its
innocence and hunger to give of itself--I imagine
this is how it began.

Who Said This?
Something whispered something
that was not even a word.
It was more like silence
that was understandable.
I was standing
at the edge of the pond.
Nothing living, what we call living,
was in sight.
And yet, the voice entered me,
my body-life,
with so much happiness.
And there was nothing there
but the water, the sky, the grass.

   Summer Morning   
Heart,
  I implore you,
    it's time to come back
      from the dark, 
it's morning,
  the hills are pink
    and the roses
      whatever they felt 
in the valley of night
  are opening now
    their soft dresses,
      their leaves 
are shining.
  Why are you laggard?
    Sure you have seen this
      a thousand times, 
which isn't half enough.
  Let the world
    have its way with you,
      luminous as it is 
with mystery
  and pain--
    graced as it is
      with the ordinary. 

           Mornings at Blackwater
     
        For years, every morning, I drank
        from Blackwater Pond...
        And always it assuaged me...

        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.

 *Red Bird, Poems By Mary Oliver (2008)