The Journey
by 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.

I've been thinking lately about where I've been, where I'm going, what my options are. It's been an amazing path so far. Here's to the rest of the journey.

Celebration of Earthenware

I am no lipless Lenox diplomat.
My mouth has thick red curbs that stop

the flow of words, inhale ideas, keep secrets,
press them into smaller lies and spit them out.

These lips, the indelicate curve of hip, heavy handle
of my womanhood, form an empty vessel for your pain.

Feel the hand-smoothed heft of bone, tempered
by the elemental drench of water, fire –

Nestle me between your palms, run your winter fingers
Along each blessed edge, face close enough for steam on glasses.

Remember that the light does not move through me,
I absorb, transmute, swirl it out in kiln-fired countrysides

of color. I am utterly opaque. I hold a healthy portion,
sustenance. To live, you must gulp instead of sip.

-- (c) J.E.S. 1995. All rights reserved, in all media, both domestically and internationally.

The Alleged

We were to each other
no more or less
than any two should be.

-- (c) J.E.S. 2007. All rights reserved, in all media, both domestically and internationally.