{"id":3858,"date":"2021-04-23T00:00:20","date_gmt":"2021-04-23T04:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/?p=3858"},"modified":"2021-04-23T11:39:19","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T15:39:19","slug":"april-23-bill-pauly-loves-mary-oliver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2021\/04\/23\/april-23-bill-pauly-loves-mary-oliver\/","title":{"rendered":"April 23  &#8211;  Bill Pauly loves Mary Oliver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Friday, \u00a0April 23 \u00a0 \u201cThe world\u2019s otherness is antidote to confusion\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A long-time 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. \u00a0Knowing that I had not embraced Mary Oliver\u2019s poetry despite his advising, he wrote on the title page:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is your\u00a0<u>one required<\/u> reading for your sabbatical. Enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here I am, all these years later, wanting to find some message board to where Bill\u2019s spirit and his memory lives now, telling him that I\u2019ve finally gotten his point. \u00a0I must like her poetry.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a good poem for Spring, with its sensual and unpredictable apparitions \u2013 fresh beauty and vitality during these weeks; \u00a0even grumpiness at the season\u2019s waves of pollen assaulting our nostrils and lungs, even those discomforts can be stopped in their tracks by sheer sexy beauty.<\/p>\n<p>\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<\/p>\n<p>Mary O. reminds me of a prayer I learned 40 + years ago on the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation. \u00a0If I stand still &#8212; still enough and long enough &#8212; 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<strong><u>be<\/u><\/strong>\u00a0where I stand and walk upon the earth.<\/p>\n<p>It helps to read strong poems out loud, several times.<\/p>\n<p>Have a blest weekend,<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>john sj<\/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.\u00a0 And I do not want anymore to be useful,<br \/>\nto be docile,<br \/>\nto lead children out of the fields into the text of civility,<br \/>\nto teach them that they are (they are not) better<br \/>\nthan the grass.<\/p>\n<p>Mary Oliver,\u00a0<u>New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1<\/u>\u00a0(1992)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything \u2013 other people, trees, clouds. \u00a0\u00a0And 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\/2020\/06\/Mary-Oliver.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3529\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2020\/06\/Mary-Oliver.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"234\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nMary Oliver<br \/>\n1935-2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friday, \u00a0April 23 \u00a0 \u201cThe world\u2019s otherness is antidote to confusion\u201d A long-time 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 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2021\/04\/23\/april-23-bill-pauly-loves-mary-oliver\/\">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\/3858"}],"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=3858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3859,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3858\/revisions\/3859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}