Of Love by Mary Oliver
Of Love
by Mary Oliver
I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not. Sometimes
it was all but ephemeral, maybe only
an afternoon, but not less real for that.
They stay in my mind, these beautiful people,
or anyway beautiful people to me, of which
there are so many. You, and you, and you,
whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe
missed. Love, love, love, it was the
core of my life, from which, of course, comes
the word for the heart. And, oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women
and some—now carry my revelation with you—
were trees. Or places. Or music flying above
the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun
which was the first, and the best, the most
loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into
my eyes, every morning. So I imagine
such love of the world—its fervency, its shining, its
innocence and hunger to give of itself—I imagine
this is how it began.
I think of all those who have passed through my life, of the lakes I’ve fallen in love with, the wandering through the world’s sacred spaces whether temples in Cambodia, rice fields in Vietnam, small temple shrines of Japan, the red rock area of southern Utah, spring in Nebraska where the whole landscape shifted its color palette in 3 days from grays to exuberant greens and pinks, the cherry blossoms of Seoul, and wandering down the beaches and amidst the redwoods of my own home coast of California. And I too, thank God, have fallen in love more times than one — and so grateful that I think it has been part of opening to love of the world, and the energy anew to begin again.
