[Poetry Chaikhana] Mary Oliver - Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches?

December 16, 2009

From Ivan--- On Wed, 16/12/09, Poetry Chaikhana <ivan wrote:

Here's your Daily Poem from the Poetry Chaikhana --

Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches?

By Mary Oliver(1935 - )

Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches of other lives --tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey, hangingfrom the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning, feel like?Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you?Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divideswith perfect courtesy, to let you in!Never to lie down on the grass, as though you were the grass!Never to leap to the air as you open your wings over the dark acorn of your heart!No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaintthat something is missing from your life!Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch?Who can travel the miles who does not put one footin front of the other, all attentive to what presents itselfcontinually?Who will behold the inner chamber who has not

observedwith admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?Well, there is time left --fields everywhere invite you into them.And who will care, who will chide you if you wander awayfrom wherever you are, to look for your soul?Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!To put one's foot into the door of the grass, which isthe mystery, which is death as well as life, andnot be afraid!To set one's foot in the door of death, and be overcomewith amazement!To sit down in front of the weeds, and imaginegod the ten-fingered, sailing out of his house of straw,nodding this way and that way, to the flowers of thepresent hour,to the song falling out of the mockingbird's pink mouth,to the tippets of the honeysuckle, that have openedin the nightTo sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind!Listen, are you breathing just a

little, and calling it a life?While the soul, after all, is only a window,and the opening of the window no more difficultthan the wakening from a little sleep.Only last week I went out among the thorns and saidto the wild roses:deny me not, but suffer my devotion.Then, all afternoon, I sat among them. MaybeI even heard a curl or tow of music, damp and rouge red,hurrying from their stubby buds, from their delicate watery bodies.For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,caution and prudence?Fall in! Fall in!A woman standing in the weeds.A small boat flounders in the deep waves, and what's coming nextis coming with its own heave and grace.Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced, among the quick things,upon the immutable.What more could one ask?And I would touch the faces of the

daises,and I would bow downto think about it.That was then, which hasn't ended yet.Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean's edge.I climb, I backtrack.I float.I ramble my way home.

-- from West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems, by Mary Oliver

Amazon.com / Photo by Torpe /

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Thought for the Day:

Everything encounteredis encountered in the heart.

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Maggie Sansone & Ensemble Galilei

Ancient Noels

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Hi Alan -I thought this poem by Mary Oliver is a good reminder to us why we need to number ourselves among the courageous souls pushing for substantive agreements in the climate talks in Copenhagen.This poem speaks to us on so many levels, and it is telling us that the living world of nature does so as well. Trees and fields, flowers and stones, they embody the outer world, yes, but they are also the doorway to the inner. The natural world is the doorway to ourselves.Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observedwith admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?We've trained ourselves to glance and not see. But that is precisely the purpose of the human soul, to deeply witness. Anything less, anything too busy to see, becomes mere existence.Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?While the soul, after

all, is only a window...And that leaves us terribly bereft, living in a world devoid of depth, alienated from our own purpose and true selves...No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaintthat something is missing from your life!The solution is to slow, to stop, to look, and finally to see. Seeing, we connect -- with each other, and with the earth, the earth and her multiform mystery.Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!To put one's foot into the door of the grass, which isthe mystery, which is death as well as life, andnot be afraid!The process of being an individual trying to find a place in the human world can be exhausting, but we can never forget that we must first find a place in the community of life upon the earth. The human endeavor, rich and tragic and wonderful, loses its meaning -- and its ability to continue -- when separated from

its larger family of living beings and its mysterious mother, the living earth.I ramble my way home.Have a beautiful day!Ivan

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are 2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.

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