Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End? (by Mary Oliver)

Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it.
It’s frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.
The eyelash of lightning is neither good nor evil.
The struck tree burns like a pillar of gold.

But the blue rain sinks, straight to the white
feet of the trees
whose mouths open.
Doesn’t the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?
Haven’t the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,
until at last, now, they shine
in your own yard?

Don’t call this world an explanation, or even an education.

When the Sufi poet whirled, was he looking
outward, to the mountains so solidly there
in a white-capped ring, or was he looking

to the center of everything: the seed, the egg, the idea
that was also there,
beautiful as a thumb
curved and touching the finger, tenderly,
little love-ring,

as he whirled,
oh jug of breath,
in the garden of dust?

     —2012

Anselm Kiefer. Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom. 1999.

 

Mary Oliver was born in Ohio in 1935. She attended Ohio State and Vassar but never received a degree. She’s one of the best-selling poets in America, and also a very private person, giving relatively few interviews or details about her personal life. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her collection American Primitive (1983) and the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems (1992). Her latest collection is Felicity (2015). She lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Food for Thought: How does the poet balance declarative and interrogative statements? How would you answer her questions?

Communion (by Oshima Ryota, tr. Kenneth Rexroth)

     No one spoke
The host, the guest,

     The white chrysanthemums

–circa 1750

John Singer Sargent. Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. 1885.

Oshima Ryota was born in 1718 and was a haiku master working primarily in Edo, known for his wit and urbanity. He was a disciple of the Basho school and a contemporary of Buson. He became on of the most influential haiku masters of the 18th century, and reportedly had some 3,000 students all over Japan. In 1759 he published a book of criticism on the haiku of Basho. He died in 1787.

Food for Thought: What is the drama happening in this poem? Why do you think the poet chooses to suggest this drama with just a few details, rather than a full explanation?