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On Meditating… Sort of by Mary Oliver

On Meditating… Sort of by Mary Oliver | Growing Up Herbal | Today I’m sharing one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems.

Meditation, so I’ve heard, is best accomplished
if you entertain a certain strict posture.
Frankly, I prefer just to lounge under a tree.
So why should I think I could ever be successful?

Some days I fall asleep, or land in that
even better place—half asleep—where the world,
spring, summer, autumn, winter—
flies through my mind in its
hardy ascent and its uncompromising descent.

So I just lie like that, while distance and time
reveal their true attitudes: they never
heard of me, and never will, or ever need to.

Of course I wake up finally
thinking, how wonderful to be who I am,
made out of earth and water,
my own thoughts, my own fingerprints—
all that glorious, temporary stuff.

ON MEDITATING, SORT OF
by Mary Oliver

  1. Heather Christine Seiniger says:

    In the second stanza, you have written “flies through my mind in its hardy accent and its uncompromising decent”.
    The poem actually reads “in its hardy ASCENT and its uncompromising DESCENT”.
    Although the meanings are completely different, I assume these are innocent typos or misspellings. Out of respect to the poet Mary Oliver, and so that the poem makes sense, I’d suggest correcting those words. more sense.

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