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It is one of the perils of our so-called civilized age that we do not yet acknowledge enough, or cherish enough, this connection between soul and lan… - Mary Oliver
" "It is one of the perils of our so-called civilized age that we do not yet acknowledge enough, or cherish enough, this connection between soul and landscape - between our own best possibilities, and the view from our own windows. We need the world as much as it needs us, and we need it in privacy, intimacy, and surety. We need the field from which the lark rises - bird that is more than itself, that is the voice of the universe: vigorous, godly job. Without the physical world such hope it: hacked off. Is: dried up. Without wilderness no fish could leap and flash, no deer could bound soft as eternal waters over the field; no bird could open its wings and become buoyant, adventurous, valorous beyond even the plan of nature. Nor could we.
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About Mary Oliver
Mary Jane Oliver (10 September 1935 – 17 January 2019) was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
Biography information from Wikiquote
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Mary Jane Oliver
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Additional quotes by Mary Oliver
FIRST YOGA LESSON “Be a lotus in the pond,” she said, “opening slowly, no single energy tugging against another but peacefully, all together.” I couldn’t even touch my toes. “Feel your quadriceps stretching?” she asked. Well, something was certainly stretching. Standing impressively upright, she raised one leg and placed it against the other, then lifted her arms and shook her hands like leaves. “Be a tree,” she said. I lay on the floor, exhausted. But to be a lotus in the pond opening slowly, and very slowly rising — that I could do.
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The poet dreams of the classroom
I dreamed
I stood up in class
And I said aloud:
Teacher,
Why is algebra important?
Sit down, he said.
Then I dreamed
I stood up
And I said:
Teacher, I’m weary of the turkeys
That we have to draw every fall.
May I draw a fox instead?
Sit down, he said.
Then I dreamed
I stood up once more and said:
Teacher,
My heart is falling asleep
And it wants to wake up.
It needs to be outside.
Sit down, he said.
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