3 Mary Oliver Poems to Inspire You to Get Outside
If you’re a poetry enthusiast, you’re likely familiar with iconic nature poet Mary Oliver. Her descriptive imagery, creative parallels between nature and the human experience, and distinctive voice make her a timeless, beloved writer.
Throughout her career, she poignantly captured human connection to nature in her beautifully written, insightful poems. So, if you’re feeling removed from the natural world, look no further for reasons to explore the outdoors: here are three Mary Oliver poems to inspire you to get outside.
“The Summer Day”
In “The Summer Day,” Oliver perfectly captures the wonder of nature. The subject of the poem spends her whole day simply observing a grasshopper and wandering through a field. Although some might feel she wasted her time, which Oliver alludes to when she asks, “Tell me, what else should I have done?”, the subject knows life is fleeting and should be spent appreciating nature.
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
“Sleeping in the Forest”
In “Sleeping in the Forest,” the subject is essentially camping in the woods after a period of time away from nature. Throughout the night, the speaker’s connection to the forest is restored, evident when she compares her grounded sleep to a river stone (i.e. “I slept like a rock”) and her thoughts to moths. By the end of the poem, she’s healed and emerges from the trees a better person.
I thought the earth
remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees. All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
“Morning Poem”
In “Morning Poem,” Oliver depicts beautiful, wooded ponds, immediately transporting you to this magical scene. She then shares how nature will bring you joy and ignite your creativity when she states, “If it is your nature to be happy you will swim away along the soft trails for hours, your imagination alighting everywhere.” If you’re searching for a way to heal, Oliver declares that your inner voice instinctually knows the path is nature when she writes, “somewhere deep within you a beast shouting that the earth is exactly what it wanted.”
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging —
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted —
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.
If these Mary Oliver poems have motivated you to deepen your connection to the earth, take this inspiration a step further by writing your own nature poetry. For help, check out our tips for writing outdoors-inspired poetry!
