Free Thirst by Mary Oliver Page A

emptiness.
            Once a deer
    stood quietly at my side.
    And sometimes the wind
        has touched my cheek
            like a spirit.
    Am I lonely?
    The beautiful, striped sparrow,
        serenely, on the tallest weed in his kingdom,
            also sings without words.

More Beautiful than the Honey Locust Tree Are the Words of the Lord
    1.
    In the household of God, I have stumbled in recitation,
    and in my mind I have wandered.
I have interrupted worship with discussion.
Once I extinguished the Gospel candle after all the others.
    But never held the cup to my mouth lagging in gratitude.
    2.
    The Lord forgives many things,
so I have heard.
    3.
    The deer came into the field.
I saw her peaceful face and heard the shuffle of her breath.
She was sweetened by merriment and not afraid,
    but bold to say
whose field she was crossing: spoke the tap of her foot:
“It is God’s, and mine.”
    But only that she was born into the poem that God made, and
called the world.
    4.
    And the goldfinch too
And the black pond I named my little sister, since
    otherwise I had none.
And the muskrat, with his shy hands.
And the tiny life of the single pine needle,
    which nevertheless shines.
    And the priest in her beautiful vestments,
    her hand over the chalice.
    And clouds moving, over the valleys of Truro.
    5.
    All day I watch the sky changing from blue to blue.
For You are forever
and I am like a single day that passes.
All day I think thanks for this world,
for the rocks and the tips of the waves,
for the tupelos and the fading roses.
For the wind.
For You are forever
while I am like a single day that passes.
You are the heart of the cedars of Lebanon
    and the fir called Douglas,
the bristlecone, and the willow.
    6.
    It’s close to hopeless,
for what I want to say the red-bird
has said already, and better, in a thousand trees.
    The white bear, lifting one enormous paw, has said it better.
    You cannot cross one hummock or furrow but it is
    His holy ground.
    7.
    I had such a longing for virtue, for company.
I wanted Christ to be as close as the cross I wear.
I wanted to read and serve, to touch the altar linen.
Instead I went back to the woods where not a single tree
    turns its face away.
    Instead I prayed, oh Lord, let me be something
    useful and unpretentious.
Even the chimney swift sings.
Even the cobblestones have a task to do, and do it well.
    Lord, let me be a flower, even a tare; or a sparrow.
Or the smallest bright stone in a ring worn by someone
    brave and kind, whose name I will never know.
    Lord, when I sleep I feel you near.
    When I wake, and you are already wiping the stars away,
I rise quickly, hoping to be like your wild child
the rose, the honey-maker the honey-vine;
a bird shouting its joy as it floats
through the gift you have given us: another day.

The Place I Want to Get Back To
    is where
    in the pinewoods
        in the moments between
            the darkness
    and first light
    two deer
        came walking down the hill
            and when they saw me
    they said to each other, okay,
    this one is okay,
        let’s see who she is
            and why she is sitting
    on the ground, like that,
    so quiet, as if
        asleep, or in a dream,
            but, anyway, harmless;
    and so they came
    on their slender legs
        and gazed upon me
            not unlike the way
    I go out to the dunes and look
    and look and look
        into the faces of the flowers;
            and then one of them leaned forward
    and nuzzled my hand, and what can my life
    bring to me that could exceed
        that brief moment?
            For twenty years
    I have gone every day to the same woods,
    not waiting,