“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver, the great poet of presence died on January 17, 2019, she was 83 years old.
Her poetry seemed to grow her lifelong quest to life in harmony with nature. She was known for long solo walks, her love of her dog, deep listening, and for the careful attention to life itself. Ohio and Maine grounded much of her writing in the soil of the real. Her poetry often emerged not only from what she witnessed, but as a kinda of healing balm for her own soul. She wrote, as we all do what she needed to believe… poetry as reworking her own biography. Almost as though she wanted to really join reality so as to displace that which haunted her.
Mary Oliver won many awards, taught at numerous schools, and became America’s best-selling poet. I love her work, and I feel I’ve lost a mentor never met.
She wrote many poems, published books of verse and essays. I’ve listed just a few here:
“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”
Mary Oliver
Rest in peace, dwight
