Every now and then I’m struck by the commonalities of interest, philosophy, temperament and style found in poets separated by centuries. Perhaps it’s just me, but Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poetry often makes me think of Mary Oliver’s and, now that I’ve read a lot of Emerson’s poetry over the last couple years, when I read Oliver’s poetry, it often makes me think of Emerson’s. I don’t fully understand why other than what I’ve said, and I don’t want to dissect it for fear of losing its magic; it just does. (Although, it may aid our understanding to read Mary Oliver's introduction to the 2000 compilation, The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson.) Here, I offer a poem by Emerson that strikes me that way, preceded and followed by poems of Mary Oliver. Enjoy.
Red Bird (by Mary Oliver)
Red bird came all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else could.
Of course I love the sparrows,
those dun-colored darlings,
so hungry and so many.
I am a God-fearing feeder of birds.
I know He has many children,
not all of them bold in spirit.
Still, for whatever reason—
perhaps because the winter is so long
and the sky so black-blue,
or perhaps because the heart narrows
as often as it opens—
I am grateful
that red bird comes all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else can do.
The Rhodora:
On Being Asked, Whence Is the Flower?
(by Ralph Waldo Emerson)
In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red–bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if the eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:
But in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.
Red Bird Explains Himself (by Mary Oliver)
“Yes, I was the brilliance floating over the snow
and I was the song in the summer leaves, but this was
only the first trick
I had hold of among my other mythologies,
for I also knew obedience: bringing sticks to the nest,
food to the young, kisses to my bride.
But don’t stop there, stay with me: listen.
If I was the song that entered your heart
then I was the music of your heart, that you wanted and needed,
and thus wilderness bloomed there, with all its
followers: gardeners, lovers, people who weep
for the death of rivers.
And this was my true task, to be the
music of the body. Do you understand? for truly the body needs
a song, a spirit, a soul. And no less, to make the this work,
the soul has need of a body,
and I am both of the earth and I am of the inexplicable
beauty of heaven
where I fly so easily, so welcome, yes,
and this is why I have been sent, to teach this to your heart.
And one more from Mary Oliver, just as a bonus for being so attentive, just because I want to read it slowly as I type it:
Morning Poem (by Mary Oliver)
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches—
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alight everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead—
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging—
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted—
each pond within its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.
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