Mary Oliver...

Mary Oliver
Born: September 10, 1935 - Ohio, U.S.


poet (Pulitzer Prize for poetry)


When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

 When it is over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

 I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.


Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
 to be blessed.
- Evidence: Poems

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
 It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
- Thirst 

Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.
- A Poetry Handbook