Mary Oliver

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who made the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of, even, the

miserable and the crotchety –



best preacher that ever was,

dear star, that just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light –

good morning, good morning, good morning.



Watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness.

In the winter I am writing about, there was much darkness. Darkness of nature, darkness of event, darkness of spirit. The sprawling darkness of not knowing. We speak of the light of reason. I would speak here of the light of ________. But I don't know what to call it. Maybe faith, but not a shaped faith - only, say, a gesture, or a continuum of gestures.

Percy wakes me (fourteen)

Percy wakes me and I am not ready.
He has slept all night under the covers.
Now he’s eager for action: a walk, then breakfast.
So I hasten up. He is sitting on the kitchen counter
Where he is not supposed to be.
How wonderful you are, I say. How clever, if you
Needed me,
To wake me.
He thought he would a lecture and deeply
His eyes begin to shine.
He tumbles onto the couch for more compliments.
He squirms and squeals: he has done something
That he needed
And now he hears that it is okay.
I scratch his ears. I turn him over
And touch him everywhere. He is
Wild with the okayness of it. Then we walk, then
He has breakfast, and he is happy.
This is a poem about Percy.
This is a poem about more than Percy.
Think about it.

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don't Hesitate)