Mary Oliver Is Dead

ANGIE BUCHANAN·WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2019·6 MINUTES

Mary Oliver is Dead and I Grieve her Loss.

Yes, it is possible to grieve for the loss of someone you’ve never met. There are some people who manage to get into our bones with the legacy of their work. Perhaps we've sung along to their music, maybe we've read their books, or been taken by their art - and, as a result, they have become inexorably woven into the tapestry that is our life - an important part of our innermost self. When they die, they leave us bereft; filled with the grief of a loss that we too often self-talk ourselves into dismissing as inauthentic.

Although no new words will come from her, she is sleeping sweetly, curled up, upon on the pages of her poetry

For me, Mary Oliver was one of those. Her words flowed like honey off the edge of a spoon, and my heart opened to receive them. In my mind, she wrote those poems for me. Not for me, as in, in my honor, but for me, as in, on my behalf - because I was unable to express those things for myself. She looked into my very soul and gave words to the feelings there.

Because I found her so compelling, so resonant, I felt a strong sense of connection to her. When I read “How I go to the Woods” I imagine myself being invited to come along on one of her solitary walks because her words describe precisely the way I feel when I walk in the woods. There is solace in silent camaraderie.

How I go to the woods
Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.
I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.
Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.
If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.”
― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

“Wild Geese” was written the year before my mother died, and in my mind, from my first reading, it will always belong to her. In those words I recognized the message my mother consistently tried to convey to me. A message which I soundly ignored in my efforts to conform to a society in which I always seemed one step out of rhythm.

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. -Mary Oliver

“When Death Comes” is a narrative of life, and the cementing of the idea that the only thing the fear of death accomplishes is to keep us from living; from feeling the vibrations on the strands of the web of life that amaze us – leave us stunned, awestruck, and inform us of the presence of those who were extraordinary enough to leave a hole when they left this world behind.

I grieve the loss of Mary Oliver because through it, I lost any chance to tell her what she meant to me. I lost the feeling of solidarity I felt with her - with her life story, as I have dedicated much of my own life to the defense, recognition, and the healing of those who suffered similar abuses to hers at the hands of the ones they trusted. Then, there is the unexplainable, and often embarrassing gratitude I feel for her – for her walk; her presence in the world. Embarrassing because while she had such a place of tenderness and respect in my world, I was nothing in hers; just another reader out of context.

She was there for me in my darkest moments - offering some small comfort when I needed it, putting a smile on my face, evoking a nod of agreement, and becoming - in the process - part of me. How do you articulate that for anyone, let alone for Mary Oliver? I grieve the lost opportunity to try.

I grieve the missed chance to have met her in real time, to have somehow serendipitously run into her at a local tea house in Rhode Island, or a coffee shop in Florida, or wherever, to hear her speak; to share the energy of her space. I no longer have the option of attending one of her classes, or workshops, or poetry readings. I grieve these secondary losses almost as keenly as her death itself.

Death is the most common and normal part of life. And yet as humans we haven’t quite been able to achieve a means of dealing with the pain. It shatters us to the very core and forces us to learn to live broken. We all know death. We all know how to live life glued back together after having been shattered but, shattered and glued back together is never the same as whole. Nevertheless, we try.

Mourning is a verb. In a broad sense, mourning includes the actions we take to help us express our grief, grief being the natural feeling we have in response to loss. Mourning is the external expression of grief.

In my grief and mourning, I pull Mary Oliver’s poetry up around my shoulders like a soft, sun warmed blanket. I get lost in the fragrance and beauty of the Otherworlds her words create for me. They console me; they are the balm that eases the aching heart, even though the weaver of those words is the source of the pain.

Alan Wolfelt, internationally noted author, educator and grief counselor, said, “Everybody grieves…but only people who mourn really heal and move on to live and fully love again.”

Mary Oliver has gone shining.

I am grieving, I am mourning. Although no new words will come from her, she is sleeping sweetly, curled up, upon the pages of her poetry
But she awakens on the page... and in my heart each time I open her books.

And in doing so she rises, in the definition of eternity.
Hail the Traveler, and Hail the legacy she leaves behind.
What is remembered, lives.