A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver Read Free Book Online Page B

are all on
    burning the world as we go.

THE MAN WHO HAS MANY ANSWERS
    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.

LIFE STORY
    When I lived under the black oaks
    I felt I was made of leaves.
    When I lived by Little Sister Pond,
    I dreamed I was the feather of the blue heron
    left on the shore;
    I was the pond lily, my root delicate as an artery,
    my face like a star,
    my happiness brimming.
    Later I was the footsteps that follow the sea.
    I knew the tides, I knew the ingredients of the wrack.
    I knew the eider, the red-throated loon
    with his uplifted beak and his smart eye.
    I felt I was the tip of the wave,
    the pearl of water on the eider’s glossy back.
    No, there’s no escaping, nor would I want to escape
    this outgo, this foot-loosening, this solution
    to gravity and a single shape.
    Now I am here, later I will be there.
    I will be that small cloud, staring down at the water,
    the one that stalls, that lifts its white legs, that
    looks like a lamb.

“FOR I WILL CONSIDER MY DOG PERCY”
    For I will consider my dog Percy.
    For he was made small but brave of heart.
    For if he met another dog he would kiss her in kindness.
    For when he slept he snored only a little.
    For he could be silly and noble in the same moment.
    For when he spoke he remembered the trumpet and when
    he scratched he struck the floor like a drum.
    For he ate only the finest food and drank only the
    purest of water, yet would nibble of dead fish also.
    For he came to me impaired and therefore certain of
    short life, yet thoroughly rejoiced in each day.
    For he took his medicines without argument.
    For he played easily with the neighborhood’s Bull
    Mastiff.
    For when he came upon mud he splashed through it.
    For he was an instrument for the children to learn
    benevolence upon.
    For he listened to poems as well as love-talk.
    For when he sniffed it was as if he were being
    pleased by every part of the world.
    For when he sickened he rallied as many times as
    he could.
    For he was a mixture of gravity and waggery.
    For we humans can seek self-destruction in ways
    he never dreamed of.
    For he took actions both cunning and reckless, yet
    refused always to offer himself to be admonished.
    For his sadness though without words was
    understandable.
    For there was nothing sweeter than his peace
    when at rest.
    For there was nothing brisker than his life when
    in motion.
    For he was of the tribe of Wolf.
    For when I went away he would watch for me at
    the window.
    For he loved me.
    For he suffered before I found him, and never
    forgot it.
    For he loved Anne.
    For when he lay down to enter sleep he did not argue
    about whether or not God made him.
    For he could fling himself upside down and laugh
    a true laugh.

    For he loved his friend Ricky.
    For he would dig holes in the sand and then let
    Ricky lie in them.
    For often I see his shape in the clouds and this is
    a continual blessing.

VARANASI
    Early in the morning we crossed the ghat,
    where fires were still smoldering,
    and gazed, with our Western minds, into the Ganges.
    A woman was standing in the river up to her waist;
    she was lifting handfuls of water and spilling it
    over her body, slowly and many times,
    as if until there came some moment
    of inner satisfaction between her own life and the river’s.
    Then she dipped a vessel she had brought with her
    and carried it filled with water back across the ghat,
    no doubt to refresh some shrine near where she lives,
    for this is the holy city of Shiva, maker
    of the world, and this is his river.
    I can’t say much more, except that it all happened
    in silence and peaceful simplicity, and something that felt
    like the bliss of a certainty and a life lived
    in accordance with that certainty.
    I must remember this, I thought, as we fly back
    to America.
    Pray God I remember this.

NOTE
    The poem “For I