Sorrow in Hobe Sound

Mary Oliver, Poet

1935 - 2019

Sorrow in Hobe Sound

I will miss you, Mary Oliver and

those nature-heavy rapturous odes

the frankness of your blank verse

presented in a way that it feels like

we are having a private conversation

and the only others privy are your

little muses – spotted owls, fluttering

butterflies, leaping frogs, a wedge of

plump geese, the sun and the stars

                        you will be missed by

so many who expect to see you there

stood in the weeds scribbling in your

notebook praising the splendor of the

outdoors while carping human crimes

gluttony, despoilment, intemperance

            I will miss you, Mary Oliver

I’ll sing your poetic messages across

a sun-filled harbour at the top of my

lungs so long as you promise to give

our Brother Poet, Walt Whitman my

very best

            I will miss you, Mary Oliver

and while I wander in mourning I’ll

go in search of skunk cabbage I’ll go

deep into the woods you loved until

I find what you told me to look for.

Goodbye, Mary Oliver           

            cloistered Oracle of Poesy

there is deep sorrow in Hobe Sound

today and it reverberates in my heart

***

My heart is heavy today. Mary Oliver died. She leaves behind an extraordinary body of work that will inspire me the rest of my days.

In propinquity,

Nic