1945-1985: Poem for the Anniversary
by: Mary Oliver
Sometimes,
walking for hours through the woods,
I don't know what I'm looking for,
maybe for something
shy and beautiful
to come frisking out of the undergrowth.
Once a fawn did just that.
My dog didn't know
what dogs usually do.
And the fawn didn't know.
As for the doe, she was probably
down in Round Pond, swizzling up
the sweet marsh grass and dreaming
that everything was fine.
∞
The way I'd like to go on living in this world
wouldn't hurt anything. I'd just go on
walking uphill and downhill, looking around,
and so what if half the time I don't know
what for--
so what if it doesn't come
to a hill of beans--
so what if I vote liberal,
and am Jewish,
or Lutheran--
or a game warden--
or a bingo addict--
and smoke a pipe?
∞
In the film of Dachau and Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen
the dead rise from the earth
and are piled in front of us, the starved
stare across forty years,
and lush, green, musical Germany
shows again its iron claw, which won't
ever be forgotten, which won't
ever be understood, but which did,
slowly, for years, scrape across Europe.
∞
Oh, you never saw
such a good leafy place, and
everything was fine, my dog and the fawn
did a little dance,
they didn't get serious.
Then the fawn clambered away through the leaves
and my gentle dog followed me away.
∞
Oh you never saw such a garden!
A hundred kinds of flowers in bloom!
A waterfall, for pleasure and nothing else!
The garden furniture is white,
tables and chairs in the cool shade.
A man sits there, the long afternoon before him.
He is finishing lunch, some kind
of fruit, chicken, and a salad.
A bottle of wine with a thin and beaded neck.
He fills a glass.
You can tell it is real crystal.
He lifts it to his mouth and drinks peacefully.
It is the face of Mengele.
∞
Later,
the doe came wandering back in the twilight.
She stepped through the leaves. She hesitated,
sniffing the air.
Then she knew everything.
Humanity can be ugly. History bears this out. The world itself is full of grace, and Oliver forages for grace daily, hiking through the wilderness until something shy and beautiful appears before her. And when that happens, it renews her faith in goodness.
But it's so easy to succumb to pessimism and darkness. Think of all of the terrible things that human beings have done to each other and this planet. The Holocaust. Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rwandan genocide. Native American boarding schools. Climate change. Species extinctions. The Crusades. The list is endless. As time marches forward, we keep finding new and innovative ways to reinvent cruelty.
Oliver's poem is a reminder of both ugliness and beauty. The fawn and her dog frolic together innocently, unaware that they should be enemies. They have no instinct for fear or hatred. Instead, they recognize something kindred--a yearning for fun and companionship. Oliver juxtaposes this scene with images of the Holocaust and Josef Mengele as an old man--humankind at its absolute worst.
There is the impulse to always be on guard--the doe, coming out of the woods to sniff the air and recognize danger. Living in a constant state of worry, however, isn't really living. It's simply surviving, without the possibility of joy or grace.
Oliver's poem is an argument against that kind of existence. She gives us an alternative: so what? So what if a dog and fawn aren't supposed to play together? So what if I'm Jewish and you're Lutheran? So what if I'm a game warden and you're a bingo addict? So what if I voted for Joe Biden and you voted for Donald Trump? (Okay, that one may be a deal breaker.)
Too much energy is spent on what separates us these days, instead of finding our common denominators.
For those of my disciples who aren't into math, let me put it another way: we are all human. We all need the same things: food, water, shelter, clothing, friendship, and love. Without these essentials, life becomes difficult, if not impossible. It doesn't matter what color your skin is or what God, if any, you worship. Or whether you're male or female or somewhere else on the spectrum. Or who you love.
Like Mary Oliver, we're all walking through the woods, uphill and downhill, looking for those grace-filled moments when we don't feel quite so alone. And when those moments occur, it's like the sun burning through a cloudy day.
Saint Marty will choose sun over clouds every time.
❤️
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