A Thousand Mornings, Three Poems, Mary Oliver

I’d been intending to share and speak about a few poems in Mary Oliver’s 2012 collection, A Thousand Mornings—but somehow just lost track of those good intentions. Here, now, three of those poems. First, “The Mockingbird.” It’s a perceptive reflection, and it’s not hard to see the analogy she draws to human nature and inclinations, the social and professional safety of mimicking what others do and repeating what they say. Yet, there is still the periodic inclination or need to speak openly and honestly about who we really are, the brighter and the darker, but most often only to ourselves and the ear of creation, to God, if you will—and even then, not as often as we should.

 

THE MOCKINGBIRD

 

All summer

the mockingbird

in his pearl-gray coat

and his white-windowed wings

 

flies

from the hedge to the top of the pine

and begins to sing, but it’s neither

lilting nor lovely,

 

for he is the thief of other sounds—

whistles and truck brakes and dry hinges

plus all the songs

of other birds in his neighborhood;

 

mimicking and elaborating,

he sings with humor and bravado,

so I have to wait a long time

for the softer voice of his own life

 

to come through. He begins

by giving up all his usual flutter

and settling down on the pine’s forelock

then looking around

 

as though to make sure he’s alone;

then he slaps each wing against his breast,

where his heart is,

and, copying nothing, begins

 

easing into it

as though it was not half so easy

as rollicking,

as though his subject now

 

was his true self,

which of course was as dark and secret

as anyone else’s,

and it was too hard—

 

perhaps you understand—

to speak or to sing it

to anything or anyone

but the sky.

 

I sometimes sense or see a connection between poems of different collections, even different authors (a particular joy), but not as often as poems of the same author and the same collection, which is the case here. And the connection here requires our human recognition and embrace of a journey, the seeking of our “true self,” and contemplating that identity largely in the quiet company of our self and that ear of creation, by whatever name and in whatever way that works for you. The second poem, I Have Decided, follows as a reasonable reorientation or choice of direction to me, a next step in that journey, and takes me from The Mockingbird to the third poem.

 

 

I HAVE DECIDED

 

I have decided to find myself a home

in the mountains, somewhere high up

where one learns to live peacefully in

the cold and the silence. It’s said that

in such a place certain revelations may

be discovered. That what the spirit

reaches for may be eventually felt, if not

exactly understood, Slowly, no doubt. I’m

not talking about a vacation.

 

Of course, at the same time I mean to

stay exactly where I am.

 

Are you following me?

 

 

So far so good, if you’ve sensed or connected with that direction or orientation, if you are following the poet's steps along a path less traveled. Yet, it can often be an elusive, misunderstood or unwanted connection. That it can take you to the still, quiet places where you can hear and find personal meaning in the voices that speak from within and without may not resonate or connect with you at all. And that connection, as it wends its way through the third poem, Today, may again appear elusive or be unwelcome to many, while welcomed and connecting so clearly with others.

 

           TODAY

 

Today I’m flying low and I’m

not saying a word.

I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.

The world goes on as it must,

the bees in the garden rumbling a little,

the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.

And so forth.

 

But I’m taking the day off.

Quiet as a feather. I hardly move though really I’m traveling

a terrific distance.

 

Stillness. One of the doors

into the temple.

 

 

But then, even for the welcoming, there are other days when these poems seem to relate less well to each other, and connect less well with us, when the ambitions of the day, or its demands and dictates, break the connections and press upon us the temporal identity and realities of time and place that are passing ever more quickly.

 

Gift & Thanks: W.S. Merwin

I like and read poetry. Most of you know that. But I’ve not been moved to post any poetry here or on my other sites for some time. In search of something special to think about—and also to share—I finally returned to old favorite W.S. Merwin, and pored over some of his earlier collections. Two poems, one each from a 1973 and a 1988 collection, connected with me because, in part at least, they seemed to be related and connected to each other.

Much is rightly made of the notions of identity, of talents or gifts received and shared, and to personal calling. This poem is about a gift given, and to be given again in its embrace and sharing with others. What that gift is, whether his muse and poetry, his poetic appreciation, some other, more spiritual sharing and direction, I leave to your understanding. Knowing something of his life, and his paths walked, I see the possibilities of those things and more. Let it speak to you as it will.

Gift¹

I have to trust what was given to me
if I am to trust anything
it led the stars over the shadowless mountain
what does it not remember in its night and silence
what does it not hope knowing itself no child of time

what did it not begin what will it not end
I have to hold it up in my hands as my ribs hold up my heart
I have to let it open its wings and fly among the gifts of the unknown
again in the mountain I have to turn
to the morning

I must be led by what was given to me
as streams are lead by it
and braiding flight of birds
the gropings of veins the learning of plants
the thankful days
breath by breath

I call to it Nameless One O Invisible
Untouchable Free
I am nameless I am divided
I am invisible I am untouchable
and empty
nomad live with me
be my eyes
my tongue and my hands
my sleep and my rising
out of chaos
come and be given


Gratitude is such a natural response to any life lived with  a sense of accomplishment, affirmation or possibilities, to the life attended by a measure of joy or hope, even for just the resolve to hold on and see if things won’t be better, more rewarding or comforting, tomorrow. In my faith, we are counseled to nurture a sense of gratitude in all things at all times. In this poem, whatever his gifts received and shared, W.S. Merwin reflects that same sentiment about life lived, but whether in times of plenty or penury, in satisfaction or despair, even if just for the relief of pulling the shade on another day full of pain, sadness, or resentment. It is a challenging, rather saintly disposition that he appears to assume or reflect.

That is one view of the poem. Let's read the poem, and then consider a second, very different view.

Thanks²

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is

On the other hand, in “Thanks”, Merwin may not understand it that way at all—or, at least that may not be his principal message and rhetorical device. Consistent with the increasing sense of loss, sadness and darkness as the poem proceeds, it may be that he is employing a more cynical message and a rhetorical devise that in the end conveys exactly the opposite meaning. The “thank you” feels more and more hollow, empty, as the situations become more despairing and hopeless, and still more so as a false gratitude is elevated to “thank you, thank you, faster and faster."

 

So no, if this view is closer to the mark, then he is not holding up a Christian or other spiritual or philosophical notion of being thankful for all things at all times, however good, however bad. Rather, he is likely implying in strong rhetorical terms that, for most of the dispiriting circumstances in the latter half of the poem—and certainly with the cumulative weight of them all—only a relative few of we mortals might muster the emotional strength (or dissociation with human life) to feel and express honest, heart-felt gratitude—whether through religious faith, spiritual or philosophical disciplines, or one’s singular strength of personality.

 

Some background on M.S. Merwin: his earlier poetry was noted for its anti-Vietnam war and environmentalist sentiments in the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection The Carrier of Ladders (1970) and others. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he abandoned his Christian faith and turned his attention to his poetry, prose, and his more secular, social concerns. He then moved to Hawaii to pursue further his interest in advocating for the environment, and his growing interest in Zen Buddhism. He was and is an environmental warrior, albeit a gentle one. With that in mind, let's return to our conversation about “Thanks.”

 

Increasingly, as the poem moves toward its conclusion, there is the sense of futility in the nature and experience of mankind in dealing with mortality, human limitations and failings, the brittleness of his institutional constructs--and his inability to reform and change the things that seem so apparently in need of change. And the normal expression of gratitude, “thanks,” so appropriately employed in the first stanza, turns quickly into a hollow, cynical parody, a response that, by the inappropriateness of the circumstances of its use, makes clearer that the opposite meaning now likely adheres to it. It is now a wholly appropriate response of a very different nature, a subdued voice of disapproval, fear and distrust in the face of an unresponsive society, business world, or government that isn’t even paying attention. And so with each next insult to sense and sensibility, the refrain cynically drones on through the continuing despair: “Thank you, thank you.”

 

I like basic elements of both interpretations, and perhaps it's possible to craft an interpretation that incorporates the best of both. Or, perhaps it's sufficient to just recognize the way the use of the word "thanks" changes or evolves from the more normal context to the more inappropriate context, where its rhetorical use better dramatizes his point. And maybe there's more still to be found or experienced in this verse. I know I'm not satisfied with my understandings yet.

   ¹ W.S. Merwin, Writings To An Unfinished Accompaniment (1973) and The Second Four Books of Poems (1993)
   ² W.S. Merwin, The Rain in the Trees (1988) and  Migration: New and Selected Poems (2005)