Blog

Praying by Mary Oliver

Posted by Diane Morrow on January 18, 2012 in Blog, Healing Poetry

It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak. So I’m thinking this poem by Mary Oliver could be instructions for a writer—or instructions for a teacher—which, if looked at in a certain way, are perhaps not that different. I’m at the beginning of a new semester, the beginning of brand new classes, teaching high school sophomores and seniors. Fifteen and sixteen and seventeen and eighteen year olds. We write almost every day. The obstacles they come across are not so different than my own. Their hands hurt. They run out of things to write about—or they run out of things to write about that they believe are interesting enough or good enough or even acceptable. They get bored with their own minds. They resist. (I just finished leafing through daybooks from the end of last semester and two young women covered the last pages with large letters in red and purple marker: I hate this, I hate this, I hate this. After a mild cringe–yikes, how could I have assigned this differently?–it occurs to me that one response is simply to admire their perseverance. They were assigned to fill a notebook—and they did.) This writing can feel terribly difficult at times. But it could be so simple really. At least simple to begin. Each time. Just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate Instructions, possibly—for beginning any blank page—or any new class—or any new day? This isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks. . . Oh, this makes so much sense—and is such a good thing for me to remember now. I’m not writing or teaching to impress—anyone—or to draw attention to myself but simply to find a doorway into something, and maybe she’s right that thanks is a doorway I could be aiming for. . . . and a silence in which another voice may speak. And that seems to me like a place where writing and teaching meet. That somehow, maybe if my words find a doorway—or become a doorway—then that becomes the space or pause or silence into which one of my students can find their way. Maybe. Which leaves me with a question: How do words create silence or space? How do we do that? _________________________________________________ See also: Morning Poem by Mary Oliver Instructions from Sometimes by Mary Oliver Image above created in Doodle...

Instructions

Posted by Diane Morrow on January 11, 2012 in Blog, Healing Poetry

Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ from “Sometimes” by Mary Oliver, from her collection, Red Bird (2008) Photo from next to our living room window....

Morning Poem by Mary Oliver

Posted by Diane Morrow on January 2, 2012 in Blog, Healing Poetry

I’m not much of one for New Year’s resolutions, but I am someone who tends to pay attention at the beginning of a new year. What is possible? What might be trying to happen in this next year? What could happen? “Morning Poem,” is one I came across just before the new year. It speaks to that sense at the beginning of some mornings—or at the beginning of some years?—a sense that something new is happening, again, all over again. Or could be. This is how it begins: Every morning the world is created. Under the orange sticks of the sun the heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches— and the ponds appear like black cloth on which are painted islands of summer lilies. . . I find I read a poem more carefully if I retype it rather than simply paste it in. I hear the lines in my head and linger over them. The heaped ashes of the night turn into leaves again and fasten themselves to the high branches. Ponds appear like black cloth on which are painted islands. This morning, January, out my own windows, there are no green leaves. What emerges out of the darkness is the graceful tangle of trunks and branches—and the pale sky in between. This seems more enchanted somehow—or enchanting—after reading Mary Oliver’s poem. Ordinary but not. Something is happening. Something is beginning, again. It could begin like this: Every January the world is created. or: Every January morning the world is created. or: Out of the heaped ashes of the night the trees announce themselves, again. The full text of Morning Poem, along with a few other poems by Mary Oliver, can be found here. Photos are from our living room...

Everything, a Found Poem

Posted by Diane Morrow on December 20, 2011 in Blog, Healing Books, Healing Poetry

Often I am asked, Who taught me to write? Everything All the blank times, the daydreaming, the boredom, the American legacy of loneliness and alienation, the sky,the desk, a pen, the pavement, small towns I’ve driven through. Writing became the tool I used To digest my life Not because everything was hunky-dory But because we can use everything we are. We have no choice. Our job is to wake up to everything. ____________________________________ from Natalie Goldberg’s Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America (p. 19, Bantam trade paperback) Photo from FlickRiver...

Shine by Joni Mitchell

Posted by Diane Morrow on December 13, 2011 in Blog, Healing Places, Healing Poetry

This song is one that can often restore me to sanity when I stray from it. It reminds me—that no matter what is going on—rising oceans—empty nets—tunnel vision—there’s a sane response—to all of it. Oh yes, right, that too, I can shine my attention on that—shine light on that. It puts me in mind of the fabric in Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, Kindness—the way we can begin, sometimes, to get a feel for the size of the cloth—how enormous it is—how warped and flawed and various and beautiful. Oh let your little light shine Let your little light shine Shine on Wall Street and Vegas Place your bets Shine on the fishermen With nothing in their nets Shine on rising oceans and evaporating seas Shine on our Frankenstein technologies Shine on science With its tunnel vision Shine on fertile farmland Buried under subdivisions And if we shine—like white blossoms falling against a gray sky—then there may be beings who watch us—herons? angels?—beings who, one way or another, might shine back? Let your little light shine Let your little light shine Shine on the dazzling darkness That restores us in deep sleep Shine on what we throw away And what we keep Full text of Shine lyrics can be found here at Joni Mitchell’s site A piece on Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, Kindness Painting is 40 Below 0 by Joni Mitchell from her website. I love the way she describes it: “This is a town on the bleakest strip of road. Anybody locally will tell you, (voice characterization) ‘ from Prince Albert to North Battleford, eh? ‘You know, but — and this was 40 below, and I’m telling you, it was the most — I was enchanted with the colors of the blues, of the lilacs, and the shiny snow and the loose, drifty snow that I’ve never seen the local painters back home paint.”...

« Older Entries

Next Entries »