The Leaf and the Cloud

Few works stand across generations lighting the best American writers. Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and Mary Oliver's The Leaf and The Cloud, are two. The difference is that Oliver is alive and working today. I rejoice in her bravery to write the real work, that because it is real, lush, sensual, and drives deep into an open reader's soul like the tendrils of exuberant vines, will likely endure for future generations as long as humans do. Remember that Whitman wasn't completely embraced in his era either, and many opinion makers expecting whatever they were expecting, turned on him as did James Harlan, Secretary of the Interior, after the Civil War. The best advice is to form your own opinion. Borrow a copy of Mary Oliver's The Leaf and The Cloud, read it. If you respond to it as I have, you will be buying your own copy of a living American legend.

As always, Mary Oliver's poetry simply takes my breath away. It is at the same time bound to earth and ethereal. She seems to be contemplating mortality, as well as the wonder of life as we live. Although one long poem, each stanza is a poem unto itself, each word a butterfly in your window.

I have to admit that I am in love with Mary Oliver's poetry. She is not only a master writer but seeing the world through her eyes is like looking through a prism of nature only to discover how the various parts of our humanity are reflected outside of ourselves. Be patient, a poem is short but not something to be read in haste. Any good poem like this one requires at least two readings to allow the metaphors and images to seep into the depths of our being. Further, some good poetry is only clever while great poetry such as this miniature epic, is for the heart, working its magic by slowly catching us unaware as it lifts us up -- like a leaf or a cloud, or both together --- and in the end gently leaving us off somewhere refreshingly new, a place where we are offhandedly aware of having experienced the breadth and nobility of our inner self. (Isn't that the highest calling of all great art?). It is Mary Oliver's only epic work where somehow all the poems relate to each other but not as a plot or continuous story, but more like all the elements in a wild mountain meadow or a forested glen are perceived as relating to each other. Once beginning to read it from the first page, you will soon find yourself hypnotically drawn to its completion about 30 or 45 minutes later. If you are a Mary Oliver fan, don't look for individual poetic gems such as White Cloud or Wild Geese (they are there but less obvious to allow the whole to emerge. After writing this review on a slightly overcast summer saturday morning, I feel the gentle urge to return to the coziness of my bed and read it over again.

Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets. (I recommend her NEW AND SELECTED POEMS (1993).) Although I could easily praise this new book of poems all day, I will keep my comments short. Oliver has taken the title of this book from John Ruskin, who wrote: "Between the earth and man arose the leaf. Between the heaven and man came the cloud. His life being partly as the falling leaf, and partly as the flying vapour." This reference is helpful, I think, in showing that Oliver's seven-poem progression is as much a meditation on the wonders of the natural world ("Everyday--I stare at the world; I push the grass aside/ and stare at the world," p. 9), as it is a profound prayer ("I look up/ into the faces of the stars,/ into their deep silence" p. 44).Oliver is not the first poet to observe "heaven in a wildflower," but she has the unique ability to find poetry in nature. "What secrets fly out of the earth/ when I push the shovel-edge/ when I heave the dirt open?" (p. 21). She also writes, "It may be the rock in the field is also a song" (p. 14), and "maybe the world, without us,/ is the real poem" (p. 17). The poetry Oliver witnesses in the natural world is synonymous with God's presence. Through nature's beauty and mystery, Oliver discovers "If God exists he isn't just butter and good luck--/ he isn't just the summer day the red rose/ he's the snake he's the mouse,/ he's the hole in the ground" (p. 50).The poetry here is earthy yet spiritual, simple yet profound. "Words are thunders of the mind" (p. 12). In addition to Ruskin and Blake, there are echoes of Whitman, Emerson, and Plato in these poems. This may be the best book of new poems I've read this year. It is also a good starting point for anyone who has never experienced the pleasures of poetry before.G. Merritt

Mary Oliver's poetry takes away the breath and gives back breath; quickens the pulse and slows it; prays beside the need of the reader; opens most everything. This work, in particular, epic; enduring.