Maria L – ecopoë

It’s 12:30 am, and I’m currently sitting in a white mesh tent with solar powered dim LED string lights meant to look like Edison bulbs barely lighting my keyboard. It’s pitch black outside so I can’t see out past what feels like a mesh space pod, and every now and then the wind lifts the side of my tent or something scurries nearby and I get a lovely dose of fight or flight adrenaline.

I’ve been trying to revive and update this blog for the past day so I can get off a screen and back to this living on the land thing I’ve been doing the last couple of weeks. While I was sitting here just now it felt like something came up and nibbled or scratched my toe. Mouse? Other creature? It’s pretty much a black vortex when I look down towards the ground after looking up at my iPad screen, so it could be demon claws peeking through the cracks in the firmament for all I know. So, regardless if it is mouse or daemon, I think that is a sign the land is telling me to leave well enough alone and go over to my tent and go to bed.

So, here is my first inglorious dispatch from a dark and moonlit shore. When I say I want to improve my fonts, quoth the land, nevermore. (at least for tonight!)

Before the blogging begins, a breath. An invitation. A call to action. A poem.

I go to Mary Oliver’s book, Red Bird, on those days when poetry is the only answer to a the shadow that gnaws at the corners of the world.

Invitation

Oh do you have time
        to linger
                for just a little while
                       out of your busy

and very important day
        for the goldfinches
                that have gathered
                       in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
        to see who can sing
                the highest note,
                       or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
        or the most tender?
                Their strong, blunt beaks
                       drink the air

as they strive
        melodiously
                not for your sake
                       and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
        but for sheer delight and gratitude—
                believe us, they say,
                       it is a serious thing

just to be alive
        on this fresh morning
                in the broken world.
                       I beg of you,

do not walk by
        without pausing
                to attend to this
                       rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

~ Mary Oliver ¹

gold-finches-tony-pratt2 — Photo by Tony Pratt

A private person, Mary Oliver has given few interviews in her career. This, in the age of the selfie, and in spite of her winning the Pulitzer Prize, National Book award and being recognized by the New York Times as “far and away, this country’s best selling poet.”²But I’m OK with that, because then Mary can concentrate on the more important things in life, like stopping to linger and listen—really listen—to the birds

If you have never heard a goldfinch sing, you can hear their song, thanks to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Macaulay Library.

References:

Oliver, Mary. 2008. Red Bird. Poems by Mary Oliver. Beacon Press. Boston. p. 18 (Amazon link)
Source: Mary Oliver official bio.

Note that if you learn about and buy any of the books from any of the Amazon links above, this will contribute funds to help continue the work on this blog, thank-you.

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“They live on the edge, between the village and the forest… messengers… travellers, moving between worlds.” ~Jay Griffiths

Author: Maria L

Burning the midnight LEDs

An Invitation