«
»

Mary Oliver’s poem, The Loon, may leave you suspended, like the poet in the early morning

To get a feeling for what Mary Oliver heard and how it affected her, listen to this video, Voices: Common Loon, before reading her poem, The Loon.

                                   THE LOON

Not quite four a.m., when the rapture of being alive
strikes me from sleep, and I rise
from the comfortable bed and go
to another room, where my books are lined up
in their neat and colorful rows. How

magical they are! I choose one
and open it. Soon
I have wandered in over the waves of the words
to the temple of thought.

…………………………………And then I hear
outside, over the actual waves, the small,
perfect voice of the loon. He is also awake,
and with his heavy head uplifted he calls out
to the fading moon, to the pink flush
swelling in the east that, soon,
will become the long, reasonable day.

……………………………………………….Inside the house
it is still dark, except for the pool of lamplight
in which I am sitting.

……………………………I do not close the book.

Neither, for a long while, do I read on.

— Mary Oliver, What Do We Know (2002), Devotions (2017)

See this remembrance of Mary Oliver with links to more of her poems.

Tags: , ,

This entry was posted on March 8, 2019 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Literature, Mary Oliver, Other poems, Peace, Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Mary Oliver’s poem, The Loon, may leave you suspended, like the poet in the early morning”

  1. RIP: Mary Oliver. Thank you for sharing your poetic gifts with us. They are a national treasure! | The Uncarved Blog Says:
    March 8, 2019 at 2:15 pm | Reply

    […] Summer Day, At the Lake, One, White Owl Flies Into And Out Of The Field, Sunrise, The Loon, and When Death Comes, which was included here in her obituary posted on Jan 17, […]

    Like

  2. Mary Oliver’s transcendent experience At the Lake, put into words, might leave you breathless | The Uncarved Blog Says:
    March 8, 2019 at 2:18 pm | Reply

    […] Praying, Wild Geese, Sunrise, White Owl Flies Into And Out Of The Field, The Journey, One, The Loon, and When Death Comes, which was included in her obituary Jan 17, […]

    Like

  3. moorezart Says:
    March 11, 2019 at 8:04 pm | Reply

    Reblogged this on From 1 Blogger 2 Another.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Kim Langley Says:
    March 17, 2019 at 6:13 pm | Reply

    Ken, I have been loving following your blog posts since we first corresponded about grief. You were so supportive, and after 3 years, my grief book comes out next month…April, being national poetry month, I am doubly excited!. Thanks for posting this poem. I have read a lot of Mary Oliver, but I have never seen this particular poem and I love it. Grateful for your writing encouragement, and for the time that you put into these posts. I am a fan!

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.