The multiplicity of forms! The hummingbird, the fox, the raven, the sparrow hawk, the otter, the dragonfly, the water lily! And on and on. It must be… - Mary Oliver

It must be a great disappointment to God if we are not dazzled at least ten times a day.

This is, I think, what holiness is:

the natural world, where every moment is full
of the passion to keep moving.

Inside every mind there’s a hermit’s cave full of light,
full of snow, full of concentration.

I’ve knelt there, and so have you,
hanging on to what you love,

to what is lovely.

Mary Oliver, At the Lake

But first and foremost, I learned from Whitman that the poem is a temple — or a green field — a place to enter, and in which to feel. Only in a secondary way is it an intellectual thing — an artifact, a moment of seemly and robust wordiness — wonderful as that part of it is. I learned that the poem was made not just to exist, but to speak — to be company.

I do not live happily or comfortably
With the cleverness of our times.
The talk is all about computers,
The news is all about bombs and blood.
This morning, in the fresh field,
I came upon a hidden nest.
It held four warm, speckled eggs.
I touched them.
Then went away softly,
Having felt something more wonderful
Than all the electricity of New York City.