The Journey – Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

The Journey

I am saddened by today’s news of the death of the inestimable Mary Oliver and am moved to honour her in my own way.

The first poem I learned by heart and one of the first of hers I encountered twenty-some years ago was The Journey. It spoke so powerfully to me of the way we each find our own way in the world. It gave me courage and encouragement to do the only thing you could do. I spoke it often and her voice became my own.

Over the years, I immersed myself in her poetry, always finding new ones to delight and surprise and challenge me. She used direct, accessible language, a hallmark for me of poems I love, and hers were a subtle and often not-so-subtle influence in my own writing. Her observations on the natural world were a doorway, as an urbanite, to a place I often longed to go; her words took me there. As she herself said, she “made a world out of words”.

When her death made the national and international news, my husband remarked how astonishing that someone who was not a rock star, nor a sports celebrity, should be so noticed and celebrated. And I replied, that’s because she is a poet who spoke for and to us all and will continue to do so. She did not end up simply having visited this world.

I am ever grateful for the legacy this gentle soul has left any who choose to read her work. What she created mattered and will live on. I bow in gratitude and appreciation.