MESSENGER
Are my boots old?
Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young,
and still not half-perfect?
Let me
Keep my mind on what matters,
Which is my work,
Which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
Mary Oliver
Are my boots old?
Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young,
and still not half-perfect?
Let me
Keep my mind on what matters,
Which is my work,
Which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
Mary Oliver
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
Mary Oliver
Things take the time they take. Don’t
worry.
How many roads did St. Augustine follow
before he became St. Augustine?
Mary Oliver
The man who has many answers
is often found
in the theaters of information
where he offers, graciously,
his deep findings.
While the man who has only questions,
to comfort himself, makes music.
Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings