Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) began to write poems at the age of 14. At 17 years old she visited the house of the deceased poetess Edna St. Vincent Mill, who had received the Pulitzer prize.  She and Norma, the poetess’s sister, became friends and Oliver more or less lived there for the next six or seven years, helping Norma with the organization of papers of Edna’s. 

Moon and Water

I wake and spend

The last hours

Of darkness

With no one

But the moon.

She listens

To my complaints

Like the good

Companion she is

And comforts me surely

With her light.

But she, like everyone,

Has her own life.

So finally I understand

That she has turned away,

Is no longer listening.

She wants me

To refold myself

Into my own life.

And, bending close,

As we all dream of doing, 

She rows with her white arms

Through the dark water

Which she adores.

— Mary Oliver