🌲 don't hesitate.
Or: how I had to slow my frequency to hear the poetry.
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
-from Sometimes - Mary Oliver
I've started reading poetry.
I’ve always wanted to be the kind of person who did that. As if a goal to pursue, I've collected books like wishes that sit on my bookshelves, waiting to share their secrets.
But poems are not meant to be consumed in bite sized flashes - like reels or tweets. You can't summarize them into tidy snippets or easily pop them into your ear running errands.
No - poetry calls for presence.
To make space in your day and your mind to hear its wisdom.
It's patient - I'l give you that much. It doesn’t demand, but nor does it ask.
And so, while I've wanted to be the kind of person who read poetry regularly, the closest I've ever gotten was a couple years ago, listening to Pádraig Ó Tuama’s beautiful Irish lilt read me poems while I made dinner every Wednesday. Kids at piano lessons, house blissfully quiet. Holiness in my ears.
Like most things, it didn’t last.
But this last summer I picked up a Mary Oliver anthology. The only reason I know who she is is because I once wrote an essay in my 20s to the question:
Tell me, what is it you plan to do , with your one wild and precious life?
Her question has stayed with me since. The plainness of language with the bigness of question. So like before, I bought the book and promptly added it to the pile.
But recently I've started meditating and writing in the mornings. A way to find an hour of myself, to myself, to be myself. And I grabbed these poems and put it with my journal (which also held Mary Oliver quotes) because it felt like the kind of things that went together.
So each morning I just started opening to a random page and started reading. At first it felt uncomfortable and awkward - the subtle turn of phrases and incomplete thoughts. Suggesting, opening but not telling or completing.
It felt unsatisfying and frustrating. Irritated, I'd put the book away, feeling good that I checked some box but knowing it wasn’t the one I had wanted to check.
But poetry is sneaky that way. It'll wait for you to be ready for it. Slowly the quotes in the journal drew me in. Little bite sized versions that made think and stayed with me.
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don't hesitate. Give in to it.
**
Joy is not made to be a crumb.
This one I thought about all weekend as I tried to notice and appreciate the times I felt joy in all the big ways, but especially in all the small.
And then today, I came across the full version. As I read it I sank into it, I started reading it out loud, to myself, really feeling her words, letting them embrace me.
The thing about poetry is that there are no extra words. Every single one chosen with intention. There is a message in the word choice as much as there is in the composition and the message.
I find that fascinating but in this moment of reading, I let all of that assessment and analysis go. I sat in the feeling of it all.
I've always wanted to be the kind of person who read poetry.
I realized today that I already am.
I just had to sit still enough to hear the words - held on a frequency too low for everyday life. Slow and flowing. Needing me to drop down into it, to hear it.
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that's often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
- Don’t Hesitate: Mary Oliver