Mary Oliver is 70 years old and still "in love with life" and "still full of beans" as she notes in "Self-Portrait." She savors the ocean, visits a graveyard, salutes a red bird in winter, heeds the invitation of a group of goldfinches to attend their performance, and finds lessons in teachings of an owl and a mockingbird. We depend on this poet for her hallowings in the animal kingdoms. We look to her for a reverence that lifts up and celebrates the little things in nature.
In each of her books, we expect to read a poem or two about the presence of the Divine in her adventures. Oliver delivers with "So every day":
So every day
I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth
of the ideas of God,
one of which was you.
The poet exhibits righteous indignation at some of the egregious problems of America. In "This Day, and Probably Tomorrow Also" she starts to write another poem but is sobered by the thought of so much suffering in the world:
While somewhere someone is kissing a face that is crying.
While somewhere women are walking out, at two in the morning — many miles to find water.
While somewhere a bomb is getting ready to explode."
Oliver is also troubled by the power plays of the United States ("Of Their Empire"), the plight of polar bears on melting ice floes ("Watching a Documentary about Polar Bears Trying to Survive on the Melting Ice Floes"), and "the terrible debris of progress" ("Meadowlark Sings and I Greet Him in Return").
And just as we are sifting through the sad truths of these poems, Oliver brings us back to awe with a poem like "Summer Morning" which concludes with the lines:
Let the world
have its way with you,
luminous as it is
with mystery
and pain —
graced as it is
with the ordinary.
