Mary Oliver Monday - Breakage

BREAKAGE by Mary Oliver from Poetry (August 2003)

I go down to the edge of the sea.

How everything shines in the morning light!

The cusp of the whelk,

the broken cupboard of the clam,

the opened, blue mussels,

moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—

and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,

dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.

It's like a schoolhouse

of little words,

thousands of words.

First you figure out what each one means by itself,

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop

full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

“Seek no farther concerning God; for those who wish to know the great deep must first review the natural world . . . If then a man wishes to know the deepest ocean of divine understanding, let him first, if he is able, scan the visible sea . . .” Columbanus

I've been looking at the book of creation lately, not the part set by the sea (although I am having major beach withdrawal and long to get to that chapter soon) but the part of the story that takes place among the grass and garden and trees. 

For some reason this weekend I found myself spending a lot of time either staring out the window or taking a turn around the yard just to look at things . . . the tips of branches that have fallen off the maple tree as the female cicada lay their eggs there, the rosemary and parsley thriving in the neglected herb garden overrun by violets and morning glory vines, the twiggy legs of the young rabbit made visible as he stretches to reach a leaf or lifts a hind leg to scratch behind his ear, the furry bumblebees jumping from blossom to blossom in the wildflower garden, the swirl of fireflies that light up the backyard at like a twinkling cloud at dusk. 

As I walked and looked, stood and viewed, I found myself simply observing, not looking for metaphors and meanings as I so often do.  I was simply present. 

Mary Oliver and Columbanus are right about creation being a book to be read . . . but on some days, there are no words.  It is all a big picture book and I'm like a child, simply enjoying the shapes and colors.