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. 

Our beloved Mary Oliver continues to surprise me.  Enjoy!

What is the greatest gift?

What is the greatest gift?

Could it be the world itself — the oceans, the meadowlark,

the patience of the trees in the wind?

Could it be love, with its sweet clamor of passion?

Something else — something else entirely

holds me in thrall.

That you have a life that I wonder about

more than I wonder about my own.

That you have a life — courteous, intelligent —

that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own.

That you have a soul — your own, no one else's —

that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own.

So that I find my soul clapping its hands for yours

— Mary Oliver