Selected New Poems by Mary Oliver on Life and Hope (2023)

Marie Oliver is a famous American poet who expresses frustration, sadness and feelings in her poetry and through poetry encourages her readers to get out of life's difficulties. Here we have collected the best poems of Mary Oliver, which is nothing more than a gift for her fans.

wild goose
por Mary Oliver

You don't have to be good.
You don't have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles across the desert repenting.
You just have to let the soft animal of your body
love what you love
Tell me about despair, yours, and I'll tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of rain
move through the landscapes,
over the meadows and the leafy trees,
the mountains and rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clear blue air,
they return home.
Who you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls you like wild geese, rough and exciting –
repeatedly advertising your place
in the family of things.

***—-****—-****

don't doubt
por Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
Don't hesitate, let yourself go. There are many
of lives and entire cities destroyed or nearly
to be. We are not wise and not very often.
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life still has some chances. maybe this
It's his way of counter-attacking, which sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. it could be anything
but you'll probably notice instantly
when love begins Still, it's often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid.
of its abundance. Joy was not meant to be a crumb.

***—-****—-****

praying
por Mary Oliver

does not need to be
the blue iris could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or some
Small stones; fair
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, that's not
a contest, but the door

in gratitude, and a silence in which
another voice can speak.

***—-****—-****

the swan
por Mary Oliver

Did you see him too, drifting all night on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising in the silvery air?
a handful of white flowers,
A perfect clash of silk and linen as she bowed
in the servitude of his wings; a snow bank, a lily bank,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear that, flute and whistle?
A dark, raucous music, like the rain that falls on the trees, like a waterfall.
Cropping on the black edges?
And you finally saw it, just below the clouds
A white cross flowing across the sky, your feet
like black leaves, your wings like the light that spreads from the river?
And did you feel, in your heart, how you belonged to it all?
And you also finally discovered what beauty is for?
And did you change your life?

***—-****—-****

cation
por Mary Oliver

Some kind of relaxed and beautiful thing.
kept flashing with the tide
and looking around.
Black as a fisherman's boot,
with white belly.

If you asked me for a picture I would have to draw a smile
under the perfectly round eyes and above the chin,
that was hard
like a thousand sharp nails.

and you know
what does a smile mean
no?
.
.

I wanted the past to go away, I wanted
leave it, like another country; I wanted
my life to close and open
like a hinge, like a wing, like the song part
where does it fall
below on the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
run to my life's work; Wanted to know,

whoever I was, I was

vivo
for a while.

.
.

It was night and it was no longer summer.
Three little fish, I don't know what they were,
curled up in the highest waves
as he swam again, effortlessly, his whole body
a gesture, a black sleeve
that could easily fit
the bodies of three little fish.

.
.

I also wanted
be able to love and we all know
How's it going?
It's not like this?

Slowly

.
.

the dogfish tore the smooth bowls of water.

.
.

You don't want to hear the story.
of my life, and anyway
I don't want to tell, I want to hear

to the huge waterfalls of the sun.

And it's the same old story anyway...
Some people just try
One way or another,
to survive.

Above all, I want to be kind.
And no one, of course, is nice,
what does it mean,
for one simple reason.

And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through fire to stay in
this world.

.
.

And look! to look! to look! I think these little fish
better wake up and run
of the hopeless future that is
protruding towards them.

.
.

And probably,
if you don't waste your time
In search of an easier world

they can do it.

***—-****—-****

Heavy
por Mary Oliver

This moment
I thought I couldn't
get closer to being worth it
without dying

I approached
and I didn't die.
certainly god
had a hand in it,

just like friends.
Still it was bent,
and my laugh,
as the poet said,

he was nowhere to be found.
Then my friend Daniel said:
(brave even among lions),
"It's not the weight you carry

But how are you
books, bricks, pain
everything is in the way
you embrace it, you balance it, you carry it

when you can't, and you don't want to,
Bajalo."
So I went to practice.
You noticed?

Have you heard
the laugh
that comes from time to time
from my scared mouth?

how i look
admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that they are kind, and maybe

also worried
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no answer?

***—-****—-****

when death comes
por Mary Oliver

when death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the shiny coins from your purse

to buy me and close the bag;
when death comes
like chickenpox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to cross the door full of curiosity, asking myself:
What will this hut of darkness look like?

And that's why I look at everything
like a brotherhood and sisterhood,
and I see time as nothing more than an idea,
And I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, so common
like a wild daisy, and so singular,

and each name a comfortable song in the mouth,
tending, like all music, to silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When I'm done I mean my whole life
I was a bride married to wonders.
I was the boyfriend, carrying the world in his arms.

When I'm done, I don't want to wonder
if I made my life something private and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and scared,
or full of arguments.

I don't want to end up just having visited this world.

***—-****—-****

starlings in winter
por Mary Oliver

big and tall,
but with stars in their black feathers,
sprout from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the icy wind
And now, in the theater of the air,
they swing over the buildings,

diving and rising;
they float like a dotted star
It opens,
fragments for a moment,

then closes again;
and you look
and you try
but you just can't imagine

how did they do it
without articulate instruction, without pause,
just silent confirmation
you are this remarkable thing,

this wheel of many parts, which can go up and turn
one and another time,
full of beautiful life.

Oh, world, what lessons do you prepare for us,
even in winter without leaves,
even in the gray city.
I'm thinking now
mourning and overcoming;

feel my boots
trying to get off the ground
i feel my heart
pumping hard. I want

think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and playful.
I want to be incredibly beautiful and not afraid of anything,
as if it had wings.

***—-****—-****

summer day
por Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean
the one who was thrown from the grass,
the one who is eating sugar from my hand,
that moves its jaws back and forth instead of up and down
who looks around with his huge, complicated eyes.
Now he lifts his pale forearms and washes his face thoroughly.
Now she spreads her wings and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a phrase is.
I know how to pay attention, how to fall
on the grass, how to kneel on the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to walk through the fields,
Which is what I've been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Does not everything die at last and too soon?
Tell me, what are you planning to do?
with its only wild and precious life?

***—-****—-****

the uses of pain
por Mary Oliver

(In my dream I dreamed of this poem)

Someone I loved once gave to me
a box full of darkness.

it took me years to understand
that this too was a gift.

***—-****—-****

Invitation
por Mary Oliver

Oh, do you have time?
to remain
just for a while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
who gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
let's see who sings
the highest note,
or the lowest

or the most expressive of joy,
or the softest?
Their strong and pointed beaks
drink the air

while they strive
melodiously
not for your good
and not for mine

and not to win
but out of sheer pleasure and gratitude
believe us they say,
it's something serious

barely to be alive
on this cool morning
not broken world
I ask,

do not go there
Nonstop
to meet this
Pretty ridiculous acting.

It could mean anything.
It could mean everything.
This may be what Rilke meant when he wrote:
You must change your life.

***—-****—-****

Read more: Famous Poems by Emily Dickinson