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Sunday, January 12, 2020

All Over the Place:
Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

By Michael H. Brownstein

The person named in the title wrote my favorite volume of poetry, The Leaf and the Cloud.






She will always be the onomatopoeia of flowers,
the metaphor of fourteen-year old locusts and the old oak branch,
an alliteration of dogs, unleashed, exploring
swamp, puddle, briar patch, bramble of leaf, sieve of earth:


Can you not see her in black snake
dipping herself into black pond too early for dawn?
In the imprint of bent clover wet with dew?
Near the stone of the slug where garden snail glistens?
In the soft petals of the apple tree painting both tree and earth?


Ants and thorns, love and stars, moon and a litter of light across water,
fox and her teeth, wolf and her courage, spider and her thick strands of silk.

Copyright © 2020 by Michael H. Brownstein
Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2020, respectively.

4 comments:

  1. Mary Oliver sounds like my kind of companion, to kneel in the garden with me, our fingers in the soil, our noises flaring for smells of earth and trees and flowers and wind!

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    Replies
    1. “Noises” flaring? What would they be?

      Mary Oliver sounds like my kind of companion, to kneel in the garden with me, our fingers in the soil, our noses flaring for smells of earth and trees and flowers and wind!

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  2. Replies
    1. Your testimonial speaks highly of her, and so does her evident power to inspire you that your own verse displays!

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