The American poet Mary Oliver, died this week. Her words inspired simplicity of life and appreciation of natural beauty. Her words transport readers to the essence of matters. Her symbols evoke memories of our animal nature in a wild, yet orchestrated environment.
During her life she held high aspirations for her self that were outside the convention of society. She wrote, “When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.” Certainly she lived an instinctive life and represented the spirit of ecology.
The poem below interweaves nature images with the rawness and grace of traveling through life with others yet essentially alone.