Lenten Day Thirteen: Mary Oliver

February 26, 2024

It is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world. ~ Mary Oliver

On this thirteen day of Lent, I stop to ponder why these particular lines from Mary Oliver’s poem, “Invitation,” touched me so much that I jotted them down and stuck them on my mirror.  First, I think it’s because of the phrase “broken world.”  If you follow my blog enough, you will notice I tend to speak of our broken world, or brokenness, often.  Sigh.

Sometimes I feel there’s nowhere I can look where I won’t find something broken:  war, poverty, racism, radicalism (choose your side), anger, hate, indifference, violence, loneliness, human trafficking, abuse, political systems, oppression, censorship, ignorance . . . .  No doubt you can add to the list.  All of it seems so pervasive, so overwhelming, so thick that any possible light has to claw its way through to be seen.  Thank you, dear Mary, for naming and claiming our brokenness.  It’s not just me.

Secondly, I’m struck by the word “serious.”  As a writer and poet myself, I know that Oliver didn’t just pull that word out of thin air.  Each word in a good poem is as carefully selected as a painter chooses a specific hue or a musician a precise note.  Being alive is “serious” business, especially because “fresh mornings” do happen all around us.  Being “serious” about being alive circles back to some of the other quotations I have shared about being amazed, present, and receptive to joy.  No matter how broken the world is, the birds still sing, the sun still rises, which is the message of Oliver’s poem.

Our “serious” business is to notice the birds, the sunrise, the purple buds forming to turn into green leaves.  Yes, the brokenness is real, but so is the beauty.  To which will we give our hearts? With which will we fill our souls?

Blessings ~ Rosemary

In Praise of Redbuds in the Spring

Rain swirls in silver currents in the cul-de-sac
the wind pounding to be let in
as it directs winter’s last bare hickory
and oak trees in a frenzied
dance across a stage of gray.
Sunshine is a myth buried behind
swollen roiling banks of clouds
on this late winter morning.
Yet outside the window, past
the feeder, among damp and pallid woods
purple buds shimmer on slender branches
drawing the eye to a respite
of color is a sea of gray mist.
like amethysts on the silken sleeves
of a choreographer.

© Rosemary McMahan