Poems on Mary Oliver Seeking Friendly Advice

Birds do.    
Least they never took back seeds.    
   
She skirts branches,    
tenderly arranging  
(work the earth with full pockets)    
around me as I slept.    
   
Thoughts fell between stars    
before morning light rose.    
   
Tree kingdoms (who heard),    
thought at times, by    
grappling darkness into    
something breathing fire,    
Doom had vanished.    
   
But nothing among all their    
Small, dark insects    
remembered her    
dozen perfect white...

Is it age that has me turn aside,
to think twice because the
turmoil in my life is nothing new.

This time around it’s
different news or seems to be,
though bitter onslaught’ chill
and words are all the same.
 
Before I’m overwhelmed
this time, I know what I must do,
and I won’t be alone.
 
From those who try to hold me back
with lists they need for me to fill.
 
From shouts that try to blame their
wants and woes so hard it seems
the earth will free-fall from its spin
— I soon...

*Yes.*  
*It was*  
*an embrace*  
*I felt when I ventured*  
*into the embryo.*  
*
*Of*  
*when*  
*I crouched*  
*and peered, and was*  
*the memory of*  
*  
*A*  
*faintly*  
*familiar feel*  
*of freedom, that I had*  
*merely saved*  
*  
*And*  
*let slip,*  
*till I was with*  
*the earth while she had*  
*softly whispered*  
*  
*The*  
*first lesson*  
*she ever taught me,*  
*of the worlds in raindrops*   ...