On A Lighter Note: another Mary Oliver poem
Look and See
This morning, at waterside, a sparrow flew
to a water rock and landed, by error, on the back
of an eider duck; lightly it fluttered off, amused.
The duck, too, was not provoked, but, you might say, was
laughing.
This afternoon a gull sailing over
our house was casually scratching
its stomach of white feathers with one
pink foot as it flew.
Oh Lord, how shining and festive is your gift to us, if we
only look, and see.
(Ok, so the picture is of a swan fishing, not an eider duck...)
Comments
I like it.
I see lots of ducks, never seen one laugh. But I've seen my dogs smile and laugh, I believe it's possible.
And the gull scratching its belly while flying...
Some days I need to see the humor, the joy, the fun in life.
And as this poem describes it, humor is a natural part of life.
And I still have been unable to get her poetry handbook out of the library. Ciardi's was good, but I want to read hers too.
Any one have any other thoughts about this poem?
maybe it's a way of saying, it's not so serious.
but the message, "look and see"... hmmm.
then, there is a more serious tone to the "look and see" - I think because we so often go through the motions doing neither...
which then points us right back to why we should - when we look and see all kinds of things are going on!
I had a cat once who liked to jump up on the toilet seat in the morning to watch me get ready for work. One day she jumped -- and the toilet seat was up. Ooops!
I think of things like this...
the poem is like a little joke...
(and, by the way, mompriest, offspring #1 has her 'simpsonize' tricks posted in my comments section)
I promise to do better next time.