
MARY OLIVER: Poetry and Peace
Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that every form of Making is ultimately another way of practicing being human. [Humans make things. It’s how we connect with one another and with the World.]
I am pleased when I can wander through poet Mary Oliver’s words and borrow her eyes and her heart to see again the beauty and the mystery of Life-Its-Own-Self. The words remind me: I am not alone.
That one helps me get back to peace again amid the hurly-burly bustle and the noisy push-me, pull-you tumble fades away. AHHH….
My favorite Oliver quote does not come from a poem. It was part of a rare interview she gave with Rachel Martin on a 2012 National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition Sunday.”
She said, “I said once, and I think this is true, the world did not have to be beautiful to work. But it is. What does that mean?”
That, I think, is a worthy big question. It’s certainly big enough to fuel a life-long work. …