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.