Am I Not Among the Early Risers
by: Mary Oliver
Am I not among the early risers
and the long-distance walkers?
Have I not stood, amazed, as I consider
the perfection of the morning star
above the peaks of the houses, and the crowns of the trees
blue in the first light?
Do I not see how the trees tremble, as though
sheets of water flowed over them
thought it is only wind, that common thing,
free to everyone and everything?
Have I not thought, for years, what it would be
worthy to do, and then gone off, barefoot and with a silver pail,
to gather blueberries,
thus coming, as I think, upon a right answer?
What will ambition do for me that the fox, appearing suddenly
at the top of the field,
her eyes sharp and confident as she stared into mine,
has not already done?
What countries, what visitations,
what pomp
would satisfy me as thoroughly as Blackwater Woods
on a sun-filled morning, or, equally, in the rain?
Here is an amazement--once I was twenty years old and in
every motion of my body there was a delicious ease,
and in every motion of the green earth there was
a hint of paradise,
and now I am sixty years old, and it is the same.
Above the modest house and the palace--the same darkness.
Above the evil man and the just, the same stars.
Above the child who will recover and the child who will
not recover, the same energies roll forward,
from one tragedy to the next and from one foolishness to the next.
I bow down.
Have I not loved as though the beloved could vanish at any moment,
or become preoccupied, or whisper a name other than mine
in the stretched curvatures of lust, or over the dinner table?
Have I ever taken good fortune for granted?
Have I not, every spring, befriended the swarm that pours forth?
Have I not summoned the honey-man to come, to hurry,
to bring with him the white and comfortable hive?
And while I waited, have I not leaned close, to see everything?
Have I not been stung as I watched their milling and gleaming,
and stung hard?
Have I not been ready always at the iron door,
not knowing to what country it opens--to death or to more life?
Have I ever said that the day was too hot or too cold
or the night too long and as black as oil anyway,
or the morning, washed blue and emptied entirely
of the second-rate, less than happiness
as I stepped down from the porch and set out along
the green paths of the world?
I think the key question that Oliver asks in this poem is this: "Have I taken good fortune for granted?"
Really, that encompasses all the other questions she asks, from whether she's an early riser to whether she's been stung hard by a bee. It's almost as if Oliver is trying to remind herself of all of the grace she's experienced in her life. And the thing about grace is that it's not something that you earn. Grace is simply given, with no strings attached, to people who live in modest houses and palaces, to evil men and just men, to the child who will live and the child who will die.
So, what grace have I experienced today? Because everyone experiences grace every day of their lives. The problem is that, unless you're actively looking for it, grace is like the sun hiding behind a tree. It's visible in the glittering leaves, in the clouds buckshot with light, but most people simply don't look up long enough to see it.
I had a pretty uneventful day. Nothing terrible happened. Nothing wonderful happened. I just worked, ate, graded essays, ate some more, and took my puppy for a walk. Unfailingly normal. Henry David Thoreau wrote, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them." For Thoreau, nothing could be worse than going through life with our dreams locked safely inside ourselves, safely unfulfilled.
I'm not saying that my existence is one of quiet desperation. On the contrary, I have been the recipient of so much grace in my life that I feel as though I should give some of it back. I have a beautiful wife whom I love. Two beautiful children who fill me with pride. A puppy who rolls on her back and lets me scratch her belly any time. Extended family and friends who love me, despite all of my failings. A job that is full of books and poetry and authors and music and art and movies. And a gift for writing that has given me some pretty amazing experiences. (I've had personal conversations with Joy Harjo and Natasha Trethewey and Diane Seuss, for God's sake.)
That's a ridiculous amount of grace for one person to receive.
Sure, I struggle, too. Grace isn't an antidote for pain. Grace is what makes the pain bearable. August 19 will be the eighth anniversary of my sister Sally's death. Grief doesn't ever really go away. It's a lifelong process of saying goodbye. So, I get sad every once in a while, especially this time of year. Yet, I still have grace, that sun hiding in the trees.
Tonight, I watched Ghost with my son. He'd never seen it before. When it go to the final scene, where Patrick Swayze says goodbye to Demi Moore, I started crying. As the credits were rolling, my son stood up and said, "That movie was alright." Then he went back upstairs to his bedroom.
But my son spent time with me this evening. He sat and watched an old (to him) movie. Maybe he thought it was corny or stupid or predictable, but he didn't say these things aloud. Instead, this surly 14-year-old boy just graced me with his company because he knew I needed it.
For Saint Marty, that is an unchained melody.
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