What Do We Know: Poems

About this book

For the many admirers of Mary Olivers dazzling poetry and luminous vision as well as for those who may only now be discovering her work What Do We Know will be a revelation and in the words of Stanley Kunitz "a blessing." These forty poemsof observing of searching of pausing of astonishment of giving thanksembrace in every sense the natural world its unrepeatable moments and its ceaseless cycles. Mary Oliver evokes unforgettable imagesfrom one hundred white-sided dolphins on a summer day to bees that have memorized every stalk and leaf in a fieldeven as she reminds us after Emerson that "the invisible and imponderable is the sole fact."What was most wonderful?The sea and its wide shoulders;the sea and its triangles;the sea lying back on its long athletes spine.What did you think was happening?The green breast of the hummingbird;the eye of the pond;the wet face of the lily;the bright puckered knee of the broken oak;the red tulip of the foxs mouth;the up-swing the down-pour the frayed sleeve of the first snowso the gods shake us from our sleep.from "Gratitude"