Foolish Weblogger Child

I like this girl.

Mary Oliver's Beautiful Words (mostly for my own benefit)

“You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it.” 

“You want to cry aloud for your mistakes. But to tell the truth the world 
doesn’t need any more of that sound.” 

“…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.” 

“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.” 

“Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.”

“Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled—to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. ” 

“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.” 

“Look, the trees 
are turning 
their own bodies 
into pillars 

of light, 
are giving off the rich 
fragrance of cinnamon 
and fulfillment, 

the long tapers 
of cattails 
are bursting and floating away over 
the blue shoulders 

of the ponds, 
and every pond, 
no matter what its 
name is, is 

nameless now. 
Every year 
everything 
I have ever learned 

in my lifetime 
leads back to this: the fires 
and the black river of loss 
whose other side 

is salvation, 
whose meaning 
none of us will ever know. 
To live in this world 

you must be able 
to do three things: 
to love what is mortal; 
to hold it 

against your bones knowing 
your own life depends on it; 
and, when the time comes to let it go, 
to let it go.” 

“I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything - other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned, that the world’s otherness is antidote to confusion - that standing within this otherness - the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books - can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.” 

“Do you love this world? 
Do you cherish your humble and silky life? 
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?” 

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?”

-Mary Oliver