Thirst: Poems

Live long enough, live deep enough, and you will find, as Mary Oliver does in these 43 poems collected in "Thirst," that all grief edges joy, all joy is edged by grief. It is only in a deep and courageous immersion into life, and perhaps also that place beyond life, that one can fully experience this wonder, a kind of yin and yang, the light beside the shadow, phenomenon that is living with thirst, quenched or unquenched. There is nothing pretentious about Oliver's poetry. She is simplicity and purity itself. Thirst is how she approaches living, and now dying - in her expression of grief for the loss of her longtime life partner. This does not change how she approaches living, only intensifies it. "My work is loving the world," she writes in her opening poem, "Messenger." She observes the world, then observes herself in it, part and parcel. "Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums./Here the clam deep in the speckled sand./Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?/Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me/keep my mind on what matters,/which is my work,/which is mostly standing still and learning to be/astonished." Much of this collection is Oliver's conversation with God having a conversation with her. Their dialogue is filtered by nature, where everyplace is a place of worship and every living thing ministering to her and she reciprocating. Her dogs speak of unconditional love and simple acceptance, an exchanged gaze with a snake is looking into the eyes of divinity (and not the darker side). Praying can be done through the weeds in a vacant lot. The words do not have to be elaborate, Oliver writes, "but a doorway/into thanks, and a silence in which/another voice may speak." This same sentiment is echoed with utmost simplicity in the poem, "The Uses of Sorrow" - that a box full of darkness given to her by another can also be a gift, a richer blessing. When you think you cannot go closer, or dive deeper, or come up into brighter light, as Oliver writes in her poetry - you can. Just when you think Oliver cannot elicit more beauty out of the everyday word - she does. We thirst for more.

Other reviewers have spoken well of Mary Oliver's grief at the death of her partner and her search for God. I want to mention a poem that spoke to me and said "If only.". If only our leaders would read this poem, be touched by it to move in other directions. Mozart,for Example All the quick notes Mozart didn't have time to use before he entered the cloud-boat are falling now from the beaks of the finches that have gathered from the joyous summer into the hard winter and, like Mozart, they speak of nothing but light and delight, though it is true, the heavy blades of the world are still pounding underneath. And this is what you can do too, maybe, if you live simply and with a lyrical heart in the cumbered neighborhoods or even, as Mozart sometimes managed to, in a palace, offering tune after tune after tune, making some hard-hearted prince prudent and kind, just by being happy.

mary oliver is a rare balm for the heart. while my mind appreciates her simply profound use of language, a deeper transmission seems to be occuring. her work is subtle in its invitation to taste of her experience. in her love of nature i find rest.

I thought to myself, "It must be about time for Mary Oliver to have released another poetry collection." and was so pleased to find _Thirst_ on the shelf. The moment I opened it I realized this was going to be even more compelling than nearly any other poetry I have ever read. I sat in Barnes and Noble, crying openly, laughing, smiling and revisiting poems and phrases and just being amazed at the transcendence I felt from Ms. Oliver's words. This is a poetry book I will give to my "non poetry" friends as well as my poetry friends. It is about the sacredness of life itself, it is about love - never ending. It is about coming to understand wholeness. And so much more. It is difficult to express with words how impactful this book is upon my soul. As one reviewer said below, five stars are not enough.

In the very first line of the very first poem of Mary Oliver's new collection of poetry, entitled Thirst, she says "My work is loving the world" (Messenger). In the very last poem of this slim volume, she says "Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart" (Thirst). These poems bookend a new affirmation of faith for Oliver: For the first time in her life, at the age of 71, she is writing from an apparent Christian framework, loving the world of marshes, ponds, beaches, bears and dogs and the Creator of all these things she has so long loved. These are poems that celebrate the world of Creation, that praise the Creator, that walk through grief (Oliver lost her long time partner and agent, Molly Malone Cook, in 1995) into resolute hope, that point beyond nature and grief to the Giver of all. Her love of nature might be seen in the way she addresses it as addressing a good friend, as in "When I Am Among the Trees," where she says Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, "Stay awhile." The light flows from their branches. And they call again, "It's simple," they say, "and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine." There are poems about ribbon snakes, roses, a great moth, otters, Percy (her dog), and that great conversation ("And still I believe you will/ come, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox,/ the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea goose, know/ that really I am speaking to you" (Making the House Ready for the Lord). And then there is grief. I loved this one (Percy (Four)), so simple, so true, about doing what need be done as we wait for grief to pass and life to go on, moving faithfully yet mutely through each day: I went to church. I walked on the beach and played with Percy. I answered the phone and paid the bills. I did the laundry. I spoke her name a hundred times. I knelt in the dark and said some holy words. I went downstairs, I watered the flowers, I fed Percy. That's it. No emotion here. She just did what needed to be done, including praying, though she was in that state where you seem to have lost all feeling. In the end though, after the poems of creation and poems of grief, what stand out are the affirmations of faith. In "Coming to God: First Days," she says "Lord, I would run for you, loving the miles for your sake./ I would climb the highest tree/ to be that much closer." In "Six Recognitions of the Lord," she celebrates "everywhere the luminous sprawl of gifts,/ the hospitality of the Lord and my/ inadequate answers as I row my beautiful, temporary body/ through this water-lily world." And, at last, in "Thirst," she writes "Another morning and I wake with thirst/ for the goodness I do not have. I walk/ out to the pond and all the way God has/ given us such beautiful lessons." Mary Oliver thirsts for God. Some will disagree with her lifestyle (Molly Malone Cook was truly her life partner), but