Thirst by Mary Oliver

According to Wikipedia quoting the New York Times (for whatever that's worth) Mary Oliver is America's best-selling poet.  So, yes. I am woefully under read in the poetry department--I'd never heard of her.  But let me tell you, she's great!  And I didn't even read the collection that won her the Pulitzer!  (That would be American Primitive published in 1984, for those of you who are wondering.)

In Thirst, Oliver is grappling with the death of her partner of over forty years.  Somehow during the mourning process, she fines meaning in the faith of her youth and looks to the passion of Christ to help her navigate her grief.  Since she typically writes in a fashion often likened to Thoreau, her journey to Christ takes us through the natural world, as in "The Beautiful, Striped Sparrow"

In the afternoons,

in the almost empty fields,

I hum the hymns

I used to sing

in church.

They could not tame me,

so they would not keep me,

alas,

and how that feels,

the weight of it,

I will not tell

any of you,

not ever.

Still, as they promised,

God, once he is in your heart,

is everywhere--

so even here

among the weeds

and the brisk trees.

How long does it take

to hum a hymn?

Read the rest here. 

She doesn't hold back when examining the sadness she feels, as seen in "Heavy":

That time 

I thought I could not

go any closer to grief

without dying

I went closer,

and I did not die.

Surely God

had His hand in this,

as well as friends.

Still, I was bent, 

and my laughter,

as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.

Read the rest here.

I don't touch upon faith much on this blog because it is just so personal, but I really liked this collection and plan to read more Mary Oliver.

<I checked this book out of my library.>