{"id":3466,"date":"2020-04-29T00:00:25","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T04:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/?p=3466"},"modified":"2020-04-29T10:49:42","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T14:49:42","slug":"april-29-mary-oliver-early-morning-my-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2020\/04\/29\/april-29-mary-oliver-early-morning-my-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"April 29 \u2014 Mary Oliver, \u201cEarly Morning, My Birthday\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wednesday, \u00a0April 29 \u00a0 \u201cThe world\u2019s otherness is antidote to confusion\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A Jesuit soul friend, Bill Pauly, who died, too young in 2006 (heart attack), gave me Mary Oliver\u2019s\u00a0<u>New and Selected Poems, Vol 1<\/u>\u00a0in 2004 when I drove to Santa Clara, CA for sabbatical after 3 years as interim dean of Liberal Arts &amp; Education. Knowing that I had not embraced Mary Oliver\u2019s poetry despite his advising, he wrote on the title page: \u201cThis is your\u00a0<u>one required<\/u> reading for your sabbatical. Enjoy.\u201d Here I am, sixteen years later wanting a message board to where Bill is, telling him that I\u2019ve finally gotten his point. \u00a0I must like her poetry.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a good poem for the week after final exams on the McNichols Campus: \u201c. . . . I do not want anymore to be useful . . . to lead children . . . into the text of civility, to teach them that they are (they are not) better than the grass.\u201d She reminds me of a prayer I learned 40 + years ago on the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation. If I stand still, still enough and long enough, I can hear the sound a cottonwood makes, and a different sound of grass growing beneath my feet. The stillness and the listening help me to\u00a0<u>be<\/u>\u00a0where I stand and walk upon the earth.<\/p>\n<p>It helps to read a poem out loud, several times.<\/p>\n<p>Have a blest day,<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>john sj<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Today\u2019s post:<\/strong> \u201cEarly Morning, My Birthday\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The snails on the pink sleds of their bodies are moving<br \/>\namong the morning glories.<br \/>\nThe spider is asleep among the red thumbs<br \/>\nof the raspberries.<br \/>\nWhat shall I do, what shall I do?<\/p>\n<p>The rain is slow<br \/>\nThe little birds are alive in it.<br \/>\nEven the beetles.<br \/>\nThe green leaves lap it up.<br \/>\nWhat shall I do, what shall I do?<\/p>\n<p>The wasp sits on the porch in her paper castle.<br \/>\nThe blue heron floats out of the clouds.<br \/>\nThe fish leaps, all rainbow and mouth, from the dark water.<\/p>\n<p>This morning the water lilies are no less lovely, I think,<br \/>\nthan the lilies of Monet.<br \/>\nAnd I do not want anymore to be useful, to be docile, to lead<br \/>\nchildren out of the fields into the text<br \/>\nof civility, to teach them that they are (they are not) better<br \/>\nthan the grass.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything \u2013 other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world\u2019s otherness is antidote to confusion \u2013 that standing within this otherness \u2013 the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books \u2013 \u00a0can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2014\/04\/Mary-Oliver1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-525\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2014\/04\/Mary-Oliver1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"257\" height=\"196\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nMary Oliver<br \/>\n1935-2019<br \/>\n<u>New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1<\/u>\u00a0(1992)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wednesday, \u00a0April 29 \u00a0 \u201cThe world\u2019s otherness is antidote to confusion\u201d A Jesuit soul friend, Bill Pauly, who died, too young in 2006 (heart attack), gave me Mary Oliver\u2019s\u00a0New and Selected Poems, Vol 1\u00a0in 2004 when I drove to Santa &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2020\/04\/29\/april-29-mary-oliver-early-morning-my-birthday\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3467,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3466\/revisions\/3467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}