Poem for a Tuesday — “Morning Poem” by Mary Oliver

Every morning

the world

is created.

Under the orange

sticks of the sun

the heaped

ashes of the night

turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches–

and the ponds appear

like black cloth

on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.

If it is your nature

to be happy

you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination

alighting everywhere.

And if your spirit

carries within it

the thorn

that is heavier than lead–

if it’s all you can do

to keep on trudging–

there is still

somewhere deep within you

a beast shouting that the earth

is exactly what it wanted–

each pond with its blazing lilies

is a prayer heard and answered

lavishly,

every morning,

whether or not

you have ever dared to be happy,

whether or not

you have ever dared to pray.

in Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992, pp. 106-107

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The late Mary Oliver had a singular ability to attend to the natural world and, with the sparest of words, plumb truths that speak to the heart. She won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Raised in a midwestern Christian home, she attended Sunday school but struggled to accept the doctrine of the resurrection and opted out of confirmation. She was deeply spiritual and spent a lifetime in pursuit of the holy. Oliver said, “I know that a life is much richer with a spiritual part to it. And I also think nothing is more interesting. So I cling to it.”

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