The best part of a book of poems is the fact that you can pick up and leave off at any time. Unlike prose, which I tend to like to devour at long, deliberate stretches, a poetry collection can be opened and read in bits and pieces, from a few lines to a few poems. It’s especially nice at night, when you may only need a few pages to lull you into sleep, or on a Sunday morning, when you want a bit of beauty to open the day. This is another of Mary Oliver’s gems, from her 1986 collection ‘Dream Work’. It spoke to me for some reason.
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
thouh the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations –
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.
