Category Archives: Walking

Fourth Poem

Mary Oliver, Breakage

Breakage

By Mary Oliver

I go down to the edge of the sea.
How everything shines in the morning light!
The cusp of the whelk,
the broken cupboard of the clam,
the opened, blue mussels,
moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—
and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.
It’s like a schoolhouse
of little words,
thousands of words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop
       full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Monday 8.1

Scattered. So scattered.
Paragraphs? Possibly phrases.
Come back, mind, come back.

This morning’s realization:

Sonnet 29:

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth)
sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

Bob Seger, Roll me away

Stood alone on a mountain top
Starin’ out at the Great Divide
I could go east, I could go west
It was all up to me to decide
Just then I saw a young hawk flyin’
And my soul began to rise

And pretty soon
My heart was singin’