As so many others have, I’ve been mourning the death of Mary Oliver this past week. I have re-read many of her poems, discovered new ones, and re-listened to her On Being interview. I have felt simultaneously comforted and bereft. Oh, what a voice we have lost.

Then, when browsing through some past posts, I rediscovered this one from the Thursday after the election. Yeah. That election. It features my then college-aged daughter seeking comfort in Mary Oliver, trying to spread love, and netting some Emily Dickinson. Re-reading it moved me once again to tears and reminded me how much our world has changed in the past few years. Sigh.

Here’s the Mary Oliver poem my daughter quoted from in the linked post:

Invitation

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles…

(click here for the rest of this poem)

While Mary Oliver’s words live on and continue to offer a path through the crazy, her death adds to my growing feeling of overwhelming loss and unease. I feel like there’s an insidious malignancy gaining ground and I’ve just lost a critical and powerful ally. So I turn again and again to poetry, to nature, and often to her words for comfort. Again and again.

This week’s Poetry Friday Round up is hosted by Tara Smith at her blog Going to Walden. When I read the poem she shared today, a powerful and disturbing Linda Pastan poem, I was struck by how it resonated with the linked post I was sharing and with my own feelings.