Last week, I listened to a gem of an interview with the poet Naomi Shihab Nye. She joyfully spoke about how she was never one to have a linear career. Her tenure as a poet has spanned many decades, and she spoke candidly of some of the trade-offs her pursuit of poetry has led to. Nye concluded the interview with this statement that has been reverberating around my mind since I heard it:
“I lived the life I dreamed of.”
What a testament, what a legacy. Hearing a living poet declare looking back over their life with pride that they have indeed lived the life they had the courage to imagine filled me with inspiration. I was reminded of the beautiful poem “When Death Comes,” by Mary Oliver; in particular, these stanzas:
“When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.”
Placing this poem in conversation with Naomi Shihab Nye’s musings about her career, or lack thereof, as she describes it, Mary Oliver says “I don’t want to wonder / if I have made of my life something particular, and real.”
In Madness, Rack, and Honey, Mary Ruefle reflects on the reasons she became a poet; she sums up her musings succinctly with this: “In the end, I would rather wonder than know.”
Poetry invites us in to a slowing down to linger in the moments of the unknown, a swim in the depths of the life questions worth contemplation. Wonder requires of us a certain humility, an ease with uncertainty that is often hard to grasp.
I went to brunch with a friend this morning at a local restaurant that was both busy and understaffed. As the waitress came over to take our order with a sunny smile, she asked us, “Do you have anywhere to be?” When my friend and I said we didn’t, she said, “Well, good. Stay a while!”
Even borne of necessity, I loved that invitation to dine slowly and linger over our lemonades. The big questions of life themselves are a feast set at a table meant for guests to linger. As we linger over a good meal, conversations abound, with room aplenty to share with each other our knowledge, questions, and above all, our shared sense of wonder.
What’s moving me right now:
Guidebook to Relative Strangers, Camille T. Dungy
This podcast episode: Naomi Shihab Nye vs. Secret Lives
How to Not Be Afraid of Everything, by Jane Wong
red geraniums
What a beautiful message. Much enjoyed this musing.
I loved this share. Felicity by Mary Oliver is a great read.