Mary Oliver's Rippling Poetry, Like a Stone Thrown Into Still-Water

Another example of Oliver's poetry that astonishingly expresses feeling through imagery is found in "The Sun."

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--

Again, the second person is utilized. However, the descriptive adjectives and active verbs empower the image of the sunset; the idea of cycles, of the natural flow of time evolves. Thus, the reader identifies with a rhythm of nature.

do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--
The narrator poses a question to readers, which prompts them to answer. Read the rest of the poem to answer yet another posed question.
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Now, for a bit of winter in the midst of this sultry summer through this last poem entitled "The Storm."

Now through the white orchard my little dog
romps, breaking the new snow
with wild feet.
Running here running there, excited,
hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins
until the white snow is written upon
in large, exuberant letters,
a long sentence, expressing
the pleasures of the body in this world.

Oh, I could not have said it better

From:
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I hope this little appetizer of poetry by Mary Oliver tantalizes you to read more!

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