The Uncarved Blog

This evocative poem by Mary Oliver took me on a journey. Its conclusion nostalgically, surprisingly, stirred me.

Coming Home

When we are driving in the dark,
on the long road
to Provincetown, which lies empty
for miles, when we’re weary,
when the buildings
and the scrub pines lose
their familiar look,
I imagine us rising
from the speeding car.
I imagine us seeing
everything from another place — the top
of one of the pale dunes,
or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea —
and what we see is a world
that cannot cherish us,
but which we cherish,
and what we see is our life
moving like that,
along the dark edges
of everything — the headlights
like lanterns
sweeping the blackness —
believing in a thousand
fragile and unprovable things,
looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping
barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.

Published in Dreamwork (1986) and Devotions (2017)

Read about Mary Oliver (1935-2019) and her astonishing poetry in this memorial acknowledgment to her poetic legacy. It contains links to articles, interviews, and poetry readings, as well as many of her favorite poems I’ve loved and posted over the years.

This simple poem—Once in the 40’s by William Stafford—might quietly surprise you at the end with its own form of nostalgia.

Tags: committed togetherness, journeying through life together

This entry was posted on July 15, 2022 at 10:30 pm and is filed under Mary Oliver, Other poems, 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.