From Mary Oliver's

"The Leaf and the Cloud" (Da Capo Press 2000)

Excerpt from "Flare":

[...]

 8.

The poem is not the world.
It isn't even the first page of the world.

But the poem wants to flower, like a flower.
It knows that much.

It wants to open itself,
like the door of a little temple,
so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed,
and less yourself than part of everything.

Excerpt from "From the Book of Time":

[...]

 2.

For how many years have you gone through the house
  shutting the windows,
while the rain was still five miles away.

and veering, o plum-colored clouds, to the north,
away from you

and you did not even know enough
to be sorry,

you were glad
those silver sheets, with the occasional golden staple,

were sweeping on, elsewhere,
violent and electric and uncontrollable—

and will you find yourself finally wanting to forget
all enclosures, including

the enclosure of yourself, o lonely leaf, and will you
dash finally, frantically,

to the windows and haul them open and lean out
to the dark, silvered sky, to everything

that is beyond capture, shouting
I'm here, I'm here! Now, now, now, now, now.

[...]


 5.

What secrets fly out of the earth
when I push the shovel-edge,
when I heave the dirt open?

And if there are no secrets
what is that smell that sweetness rising?

What is my name,
o what is my name
that I may offer it back
to the beautiful world?

Have I walked
long enough
where the sea breaks raspingly
all day and all night upon the pale sand?

Have I admired sufficiently the little hurricane
of the hummingbird?

the heavy
thumb
of the blackberry?

the falling star?


 6.

Count the roses, red and fluttering.
Count the roses, wrinkled and salt.
Each with its yellow lint at the center.
Each with its honey pooled and ready.
Do you have a question that can't be answered?
Do the stars frighten you by their heaviness
  and their endless number?
Does it bother you, that mercy is so difficult to
  understand?
For some souls it's easy; they lie down on the sand
  and are soon asleep.
For others, the mind shivers in its glacial palace,
  and won't come.
Yes, the mind takes a long time, is otherwise occupied
than by happiness, and deep breathing.
Now, in the distance, some bird is singing.
And now I have gathered six or seven deep red,
  half-opened cups of petals between my hands,
and now I have put my face against them
and now I am moving my face back and forth, slowly,
  against them.
The body is not much more than two feet and a tongue.
Come to me, says the blue sky, and say the word.
And finally even the mind comes running, like a wild thing,
  and lies down in the sand.
Eternity is not later, or in any unfindable place.
Roses, roses, roses, roses.