December 6: "The Gift," Breathed Its Bones, Great Friendship

If you have been reading this blog all year long, following my journey through Mary Oliver's Devotions:  The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver, you will have read every poem in the book by now.  And you will have also read my reflections on each of those poems.

But poetry is not a dead thing.  Reading a poem is not like staring at the skeleton of Sue the T. Rex at the Field Museum in Chicago.  No, each time a poem is read, it breathes again.  Lives again.  Becomes something completely different.  Take this poem, for instance . . . 

The Gift

by:  Mary Oliver

Be still, my soul, and steadfast.

Earth and heaven both are still watching

though time is draining from the clock

and your walk, that was confident and quick,

has become slow.

So, be slow if you must, but let

the heart still play its true part.

Love still as once you loved, deeply

and without patience.  Let God and the world

know you are grateful.

That the gift has been given.

Oliver is reflecting on aging in this poem.  The inevitable process of becoming slower as time drains from the clock.  Yet, it is also a reflection on being steadfast in love and gratitude.  Being thankful for the gifts that you have been given.

When I wrote about this poem at the beginning of 2023, I focused on the slog of the day--making it through another 24 hours with concerns and worries and illness.  I was weighed down by a lot of things:  a sick son, meetings at work, teaching, and a struggling friend.

Today, when I reread the poem, breathed its bones into new life, I found myself thinking, instead, of one of my great friendships with a fellow poet.  Almost every week, this friend and I meet in my library office to write together, unless the universe gets in the way.  We talk, scribble, share, and laugh.  For a little over an hour, all the noise of the world fades, and we simply celebrate in words the complex, heartbreaking, wonderful lives we both lead.

I met with my friend this morning for a little less than an hour.  However, in that time, we wrote two poems, discussed our current struggles, and laughed good, true, cleansing laughs.  It set the tone for the rest of my day, right up until this evening when I was sitting in a jazz Christmas concert.  I had a day filled with sunlight and a night filled with moonlight.  No darkness.

I'm not sure my poet friend knows how grateful I am for our long and steady friendship through some very difficult times in both our lives.  We never put impossible demands or expectations on each other.  We don't challenge each other.  We never have to forgive each other because we never feel slighted.

She has been a rock in my life for going on ten years.  And seen me through a lot of shit.  I hope she can say the same for me.  

She is "The Gift" in Saint Marty's life tonight.