i've read too much mary oliver; it's finally gone to my head | Teen Ink

i've read too much mary oliver; it's finally gone to my head

February 28, 2017
By marge.in.charge BRONZE, Rockford, Michigan
marge.in.charge BRONZE, Rockford, Michigan
3 articles 0 photos 0 comments

I have never met the Good Lord on the street.
I wouldn’t know Christ if He shook my hand and called my name.
But I have led myself to lie in green grass and known the smell of damp Earth: known the rain,
soft and sweet.
I know sacred ground in knowing my body: every inch of skin that wraps tight every pound;
I know the blue lightning that strikes hot and regular from the thunderhead between my ribs.
I have driven down deserted roads, laughing, fingers trailing, loneliness forgotten.
I have woken soft on cashmere Sundays.
I have danced barefoot/
I have danced draped in gold.
Do not condemn the daughters of Zion. Have you never been seventeen?
I have walked on water
(ears pink with cold)
clutching frozen fingers that were not my own, my chest filling with silent snow. 
I have found god (little g) in
cups of coffee/
clean teeth/
a static-ridden voice through the phone/
the light, holy, that streams, through the pink-stained glass of perfume bottles.
Hot showers/
the velvet flesh and gentle give of peaches/
the creaking sound reserved only for the motion of great objects.
I have walked a grid of stolen stars and known the sureness of concrete under my feet.
Don’t you dare tell me I don’t know Divinity;
I’m no stranger to the divine.



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on Jun. 22 2017 at 5:17 pm
PisaExperiment BRONZE, Palo Alto, California
4 articles 0 photos 3 comments

Favorite Quote:
"For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love." - Carl Sagan

The title drew me in; I love Mary Oliver! Although I should probably spend more time actually experiencing nature instead of just reading about it...