On my library visits, I have been making it a point to bring home a book or two of poetry. Poets I know and poets I don’t find their way into my arms as I attempt to broaden my poetic horizons. Most recently, New and Selected Poems, by Mary Oliver, has been sitting at my side. I bookmarked (with a real book mark) The Black Walnut Tree. I’ve read this poem a few times over, thinking about our own trees here on the Cutoff and our walnut harvest last fall.
I was so sorry to hear through Nan’s blog, Letters from a Hill Farm, that Mary Oliver has cancelled all speaking engagements. She has taken ill. As I thumbed through the book this morning, another poem presented itself to me. Poems have a way of doing that, don’t they? They sit and wait until just the right time to introduce themselves. I thought it might be fitting way to honor Mary Oliver by posting it today.
The picture is ours, one of hundreds taken at Walden Pond, but the message I hear from the poem is a simple one. As simple as the idea of Walden. It is wherever you are.
It isn’t very far as highways lie.
I might be back by nightfall, having seen
The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water
Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.
They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper:
How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!
Many have gone, and think me half a fool
To miss a day away in the cool country.
Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish,
Going to Walden is not so easy a thing
As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult
Trick of living, and finding it where you are.
She is my favorite poet 🙂
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I can understand that she would be a favorite, Francesca. Her words are provocative and beautiful. Thank you for commenting.
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“How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!”
A life lesson for me there, Penny: thanks…
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I think for us all, Kate. You are so very welcome.
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What a beautiful piece of poetry.
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I thought so as well, Cath.
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This is lovely. I love the poem and you know I especially love ponds. Everyone needs to find that quiet place to sit, stand, or walk and just enjoy the beautiful world that God has made for us. Time for clearing our minds, time to breathe the fresh air so that we won’t grow dull from hurrying here and there. Thanks for sharing this beautiful poem and your lovely photo.
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Thank you, Janet. The poem really moved me as I read then re-read it. It is so wonderful that you have those places of quiet around you and appreciate all that God has made. What a pity it would be to not enjoy it. You are so very welcome.
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What a wonderful poem, and lovely photo. I love those lines ‘It is the slow and difficult/ Trick of living, and finding it where you are.’
The truth of this is dropping into my soul like a stone into a pond. Thank you for bringing this into my day, Penny.
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They are such wonderful words, aren’t they, and so powerful that they would move you so? They moved me, as well. You are welcome, Juliet and thank you for your kind words.
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Just beautiful, Penny. The photo, the poem, the poet. And your words honoring her.
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Thank you, Teresa. I really have to thank you for becoming acquainted with Mary Oliver’s poems.
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What a wonderful poem and indeed a fitting reading with which to honor Mary Oliver. You are always so quick to share such lovely things, Penny! I loved this. Debra
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It is easy to share with such gracious people that visit here. Thank you for being one of them and for your kind words, Debra.
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That’s a beautiful poem and the image beside it is wonderful. How I would love to sit where that photo has been taken, lie in the sun and read a good book. xx
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It is a lovely poem, isn’t it? We visited Walden Pond about three years ago, ate our picnic lunch on her shores before walking the woods of Thoreau. There were people reading just as you would do, a few artists, swimmers . . .
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We are devotees of the New Forest, Penny. In the hot summer, we prefer to walk on tree shaded paths, where the broad leaves keep us cool.
Your picture reminded me of that.
I do not know Mary Oliver’s poetry, I must find some.
Thank you
John
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Is there no better place to be than a tree shaded path, John? You would love Walden Pond where Henry David Thoreau spent some time in his little cabin. I think you would enjoy some of Mary Oliver’s poetry.
You are quite welcome.
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Penny, thank you for introducing me to Mary’s poetry. I am a neophyte in the poetry world. The one you included has such a sizzling message. The importance of taking things slow.
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You are quite welcome, Andra. I’ve always loved poetry, but, was unfamiliar with Mary Oliver until fairly recently. The more I read her, the more I like her, especially when I read her aloud.
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I love the poem and your beautiful photo, Penny. Thank you for introducing me to a poet I don’t know. I’ve just checked our library catalogue to find that there are 3 volumes of her poetry in stock, but either out on loan or already on hold, so I’m going to have to wait to read more.
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As I’ve mentioned to others, I am enjoying reading her more and more. The wait for a volume will be well worth it. Thank you, Perpetua.
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..and finding it where you are.. Oh yes Penny.. learning to live in the moment. Love this post. And Thank thank you for the peepers.I loved that ! Oh how lucky we are to have this amazing communication when a friend in America not only tells you about peepers.. but sends a picture and their sound! How astonishing !
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Isn’t it wonderful, Joan? Our world has gotten smaller and we get to learn new things, big and small, like the peepers, through this wonderful tool called the internet as our ideas and picture and your doodles as well travel the world. You are so very welcome.
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Beautiful. I just put ‘..Walden Pond’ on my Kindle — one of my many always meant to read books. I love the idea of getting poetry books from the Library — why haven’t I ever thought of that?
Enjoyed your “throwaway” phase ‘with a real bookmark’….keeping track of those seems to be a problem for me with my library books now that I also read on Kindle.
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I just thought of it myself a year or two ago, Sallie. I have my favorite poets here at home, but, I found I wanted to explore poetry a bit and the library has so many poets I might now otherwise know. I hope you enjoy Walden Pond.
That is one complaint I’ve heard about e-readers. Soon they will have an app or whatever for e-bookmarks. I have so many bookmarks, and corners of envelopes, and yellow sticky notes holding my places in books. ha!
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Penny–I meet this news with such a heavy heart. Mary Oliver has been my lodestar forever. I whisper to myself several times a week, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”, and I remember her poem about her father’s making ice grip shoes for all his neighbors the winter before he died. Prayers. I offer up prayers for her comfort and her recovery.
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I’ve read it so many times up on the top of your blog, Mike, and each time I read it henceforth, it will be like a whisper to myself. Thank you for your words here.
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Dear Penny,
Thank you for posting Mary Oliver’s poem on Walden–also the evocative photograph.
The last lines of Oliver’s poem remind me of the poem “Ithaca” by C.P. Cavafy. Since first reading it in 2008, it has become one of my favorite poems. I would think that you could goggle it. The two poems truly seems lile cousins!
Peace.
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And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn’t deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you’ll have understood what these Ithakas mean.
I wish I had committed this to memory, Dee, but googled it, only to remember I have it in a book on my shelf. You are so right. The poems do seem like cousins. I first heard Ithaka as it was read at Jackie Kennedy’s funeral. It moved me then. It moves me still. Thank you for mentioning Ithaca, and for your kind words.
You are welcome.
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A lovely poem and much more accessible than some Anton has recommended to me! Thank you for this post Penny – I feel a bit wiser for reading it!
Speaking of poetry and Anton, I just received a book I ordered for his birthday through Amazon. It’s a leather bound “Selected Poems of William Butler Yeats” from the Franklin Library limited edition collection, “The 100 Greatest Books of All Time”. I can’t wait to give it to him in May! Anton is pretty ‘old school’ so I think he’ll appreciate the book.
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You are welcome, Janet. You might like Mary Oliver. I’m sure your library has several of her volumes. This one really called to me.
I’m sure Anton will treasure it. I am still in awe of his love of poetry, remember the first time he mentioned it to me at the Chocolate Moon. I think he was still in high school at the time. I’d had this feeling that poetry was a dying art and there was Anton, proving me wrong. How wonderful that he likes Yeats.
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I am a neophyte in the poetry world, can you tell me more about this poem?
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Thank you for asking. I am not that well versed in poems, I just know what I like, what moves me and this poem satisfies both. To me it is about appreciating that which is around you and finding comfort right where you are. I was initially attracted to it because of my interest in Thoreau’s Walden. We have visited it, but one really doesn’t have to go there to find one’s own Walden.
If you are new to poetry, I would like to suggest that you read poems aloud, several times, to really start to understand them. Enjoy.
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