Friday, September 11, 2009

Poetry Friday: In which we try to picture tomorrow

"Mary Oliver's poetry is an excellent antidote for the excesses of civilization," wrote one reviewer for the Harvard Review, "for too much flurry and inattention, and the baroque conventions of our social and professional lives. She is a poet of wisdom and generosity whose vision allows us to look intimately at a world not of our making."  ~~ from Poets.org



Here's to antidotes to excesses of civilization, and here's a poem for Poetry Friday, by Mary Oliver:


Walking to Oak-Head Pond, and Thinking 
of the Ponds I Will Visit in the Next 
Days and Weeks

What is so utterly invisible
as tomorrow?
Not love,
not the wind,

not the inside of stone.
Not anything.
And yet, how often I'm fooled-
I'm wading along

in the sunlight-
and I'm sure I can see the fields and the ponds shining
days ahead-
I can see the light spilling

like a shower of meteors
into next week's trees,

(Read the rest of the poem here.)

The Poetry Friday round up is at Wild Rose Reader today.

3 comments:

Sara said...

Oh my word; that is stunning. And how often I'm fooled because an Oliver poem is easily entered. And then I'm lost in it for days.

jama said...

Absolutely beautiful. She really is a much needed antidote in our world. Her words are so clean, like clear water moving over smooth stones. Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day


And yet instead of making it "a tale told by an idiot", Oliver makes it transcendent. Lovely.