'To Begin With, the Sweet Grass' by Mary Oliver. I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,Īnd what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know? I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is. They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishmentĪnd I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope. I cast them out, I put them on the mush pile. I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart. Since then I have gone out from my confinements, Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to. What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.

We do one thing or another we stay the same, or weĭo you also think that beauty exists for someĪnd, if you have not been enchanted by this adventure. With unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails, Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus, You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe It's giving until the giving feels like receiving. It's more than the beating of the single heart. It's more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse. This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes. Oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.Įventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.Īnd someone's face, whom you love, will be as a starĪnd you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.Īnd you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper: Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpetsĪre opening their bodies for the hummingbirds The reliability and the finery and the teachings Will the lark forget to lift its body in the air or Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat

Mary oliver evidence poems