Few writers capture gratitude for what is around us with the grace of Mary Oliver. As we approach Thanksgiving, I turn to Oliver’s poems and essays to remind myself that, like the violets in her poem Spring, it is okay to use up your time in happiness.

Violets have many leaves, each one so earnestly
heart-shaped that you could not imagine the plants have
thought of anything else to do. But they have: they make
blossoms, which rise yellow or violet, in multitudes, the
violet ones with violet-colored spurs. They like
dampness, they like hillsides and are comfortable also
in the shady woods. They like to be alone, or congregated
together in the grass, looking up as you pass by, saying
Hello, Hello. And what else do you imagine

they might do? Sing? I don’t think so, I suspect
they know when any further ambition would be
unseemly. So all their time is used up in happiness―
in becoming the best they can be
for the greater glory of _.
In fact, they know it’s okay to rest for the rest of
your life just saying: Thank you. Oh cast of thousands,
as are the stars of heaven. Thank you.

Blue Iris: Poems and Essays (2004) by Mary Oliver is a collection of ten new poems at the time of publication, two dozen of her poems written over the prior two decades, and two previously unpublished essays on the beauty and wonder of plants. Nature is full of mystery and miracle. Oliver believes our response, if we are paying attention, should be one of astonishment and gratitude. In The Bleeding-Heart she writes of a plant that has “thrived for sixty years if not more,” and has “never missed a spring without rising and spreading itself into a glossy bush, with many small red hearts dangling.” And she asks, “Don’t you think that deserves a little thought?”

And the way she thinks shows Oliver’s wonderful eye for detail and ear for expression. The woman who planted the bush is long gone, as are those who lived there at that time.

…and so, like so many stories, this one can’t get finished properly. Most things that are important, have you noticed, lack a certain neatness. More delicious, anyway, is to remember my grandmother’s pleasure when the dissolve of winter was over and the green knobs appeared and began to rise, and to create their many hearts. One would say she was a simple woman, made happy by simple things. I think this was true. And more than once, in my long life, I have wished to be her.

At Thanksgiving, especially, it is important to remember that while life is hard, because mystery is hard, life is also joyful and full of wonder. It is easy to give thanks when everything is going well. It is in the most challenging of times, however, when it is so very important to be open to gratefulness and to remember to be thankful. Thanksgiving itself came from a time of violence. Abraham Lincoln’s famous Thanksgiving proclamation was issued in the midst of some of the worst times of the Civil War. An attitude of gratitude — a deliberate choice of love over fear, a desire to be positive instead of negative — can help us be thankful in difficult times.

Mary Oliver understood the true enchantment and mysterious spell of nature and she found ways — as in her poem Freshen the Flowers, She Said — to hear music in her world and convey that to her readers, even when there was nothing playing.

Freshen the Flowers, She Said

So I put them in the sink, for the cool porcelain
was tender,
and took out the tattered and cut each stem
on a slant,
trimmed the black and raggy leaves, and set them all–
roses, delphiniums, daisies, iris, lilies,
and more whose names I don’t know, in bright new water–
gave them

a bounce upward at the end to let them take
their own choice of position, the wheels, the spurs,
the little sheds of the buds.  It took, to do this,
perhaps fifteen minutes,
Fifteen minutes of music
with nothing playing.

Be grateful in the wild joy of belonging amidst the wonder around us. Be thankful for the opportunity to take in this music. Be generous in sharing and exchanging kindness with the world.

Happy Thanksgiving.

More to come . . .

DJB

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The Weekly Reader links to the works of other writers I’ve enjoyed. I hope you find something that makes you laugh, think, or cry. 

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Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash