Lilies
I have been thinking
about living
like the lilies
that blow in the fields.
They rise and fall
in the edge of the wind,
and have no shelter
from the tongues of the cattle,
and have no closets or cupboards,
and have no legs.
Still I would like to be
as wonderful
as the old idea.
But if I were a lily
I think I would wait all day
for the green face
of the hummingbird
to touch me.
What I mean is,
could I forget myself
even in those feathery fields?
When Van Gogh
preached to the poor
of coarse he wanted to save someone--
most of all himself.
He wasn't a lily,
and wandering through the bright fields
only gave him more ideas
it would take his life to solve.
I think I will always be lonely
in this world, where the cattle
graze like a black and white river--
where the vanishing lilies
melt, without protest, on their tongues--
where the hummingbird, whenever there is a fuss,
just rises and floats away.
Notes
Where Jane Hirshfield’s My Sandwich savored the quiet, unbargained-for gift of an ordinary meal eaten in the blink of an hour, Mary Oliver’s Lilies plunges us into the dark, muck-laden ponds where radiant blossoms open in reckless, uncalculated joy. The buoyant rise of gleaming white petals out of the black, subterranean rot exposes the profound economy of nature, proving that spiritual and sensory renewal requires no ascetic withdrawal, but rather a fearless appetite to draw sweetness and light directly from the mire. It crowns August’s theme of Feast in sun-drenched, watery grace, reminding us that to partake fully in the banquet of life is to cast off self-pity and open ourselves generously to the abundant, floating world. #poetry #maryoliver #feast #august #lilies