Poemattic: Poetry and Art for the Soul

Mary Oliver’s poems are among my very favorite poems. I think I have most of her poetry books. Among them are The Leaf and the Cloud, American Primitive, House of light and Why I Wake Up Early. I recently wrote a list of reasons of why I wake up early which I cannot say is poetry but interesting and a learning experience for me about myself. People would ask me why I was such an early riser; I get up early even when I am on vacation and now in my retirement. It is habit I guess and I am definitely one of those creatures of habit. But After reading Mary Oliver’s poem Why I Wake up Early, I decided to write down the reasons or excuses I had for waking early. I wont bore you with the details but I will share her poem.

Why I wake up Early by Mary Oliver

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who make the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of, even, the

miserable and the crotchety—

best preacher that ever was.

dear star, that just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light —

good morning, good morning, good morning,

watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness.

Please me let me know what you think.

I do not know what destiny beholds

all I know is I am growing old.

The plan is one unique to me alone

Far away I see the engraved stone,

That will mark my journey with a beginning and end

but what really counts is what happens

in between the space marked by the dash.

The plan was sketched.

The dream was created;

although sometimes deferred.

Yet the butterfly lead the way one day.

What else is there to say?

My unique destiny

is a road with many stones.

A road on which

I must take each step alone.

“Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.”

—T. S. Eliot

“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” —Robert Frost

Here is a poem I love by Emily Dickinson.

It is not dying hurts us so, –

“Tis living hurts us more;

But dying is a different way,

A kind behind the door,-

The southern custom of the bird

that soon as frost are due

Adopts a better latitude.

We are the birds that stay,

The shiverers round farmers’ doors,

For whose reluctant crumb

We stipulate, till pitying snows

Persuade our feathers home.