Recently Mary Oliver’s poem, “In the Storm,” landed in my inbox. In the poem, Oliver took a remarkable scene from nature — acts of kindness between birds in a storm — and used her keen observational powers and poetic magic to enable us to see it with her.
Then, as she is wont to do, she found a way to take us further, deeper, and bring it home to our own lives.
In these days of natural, political, and perhaps personal storms, it is good to be reminded of the miracle of kindness.
I don’t have permission to post the poem here – only a few lines. Ah, but which ones? Rather than diminish the impact of the poem by revealing its closing stanzas – I will post the lines that capture the wisdom that Mary Oliver brings to all her poetry. I suspect we could all use more of this.
But this much I have learned —
if not enough else —
to live with my eyes open.
After reading these lines, please click on the highlighted line, and read the poem in full.
If you are so moved, please return here and post a comment – or just move on into your day, feeling buoyed up by this tale of kindness.
Click here to buy a copy of Oliver’s book, Thirst, where the poem resides.
P.S. This is part of our #Mindfulness Mondays series. As you may have noticed, I have missed many a Monday’s posting. But I decided to offer myself some kindness and not beat myself up over this. (As that would be counter to all that #Mindfulness Monday is supposed to be about.) Instead, I decided to feel good about the ones that I do get around to posting – and thus feel encouraged to do more. I hope you also can give yourself, and those around you, some kindness in the weeks ahead.
Photo credit: Laurent Delfraissy Photographie
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