Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) was born and raised in Maple Hills Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. She would retreat from a difficult home to the nearby woods, where she would build huts of sticks and grass and write poems. Poet Maxine Kumin said of Mary; she was an “indefatigable guide to the natural world." Lucky us.

Can You Imagine

For example, what the trees do

not only in lightning storms

or the watery dark of a summer's night

or under the white nets of winter

but now, and now, and now – whenever

we're not looking. Surely you can't imagine

they don't dance, from the root up, wishing

to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting

a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly

more shade - surely you can't imagine they just

stand there loving every

minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings

of the years slowly and without a sound

thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,

and then only in its own mood, comes

to visit, surely you can't imagine

patience, and happiness, like that.

— Mary Oliver