The poet, Mary Oliver, died this past week at the age of 83. The New York Times described her as “far and away, America’s best-selling poet.”  To my mind, the best eulogy I’ve yet read is the following by Patricia Adams Farmer posted on Spirituality and Practice.

Mary Oliver and the World of Everywhere

Posted by Patricia Adams Farmer on January 18, 2019

“On a soft, snowy morning I read a poem by Mary Oliver. And in the afternoon, it came to me, a notice of her death. Too soon! I thought. Too soon to lose a talent of this magnitude. My heart rocked in grief for several minutes. But then I re-read the poem from the morning called “Bazougey” (Dog Songs, 2013), about the death of a beloved dog. It begins,

Where goes he now, that dark little dog
who used to come down the road barking and shining?
He’s gone now, from the world of particulars,
the singular, the visible.

So, that deepest sting: sorrow. Still,
is he gone from us entirely, or is he
a part of that other world, everywhere?

I now think of Mary Oliver as in this poem, no longer part of the singular, the visible, the world of particulars, but rather “a part of that other world, everywhere.”

Mary Oliver spent her life soaking up the natural world and letting it flow out through her pen in ways that make our moments on this earth more tender, our souls full of seeing. She let it all flow through her—the sorrow and the love from the world of particulars.

She was like the tide going out, leaving behind treasures on the shore for us to discover in our quiet meanderings. In this way, she helped us find that secret flow between the world of here and the world of everywhere.

Musing on my own spirituality and Mary Oliver’s passing, I wonder: If Mary Oliver is in heaven now, then mustn’t she also be in the snowy tree branch outside my window where a fiery red cardinal sits in perfect equanimity? She may not be here, but she is everywhere.

In my theological mind, heaven is God and God is heaven. And God is everywhere! God’s deep presence suffuses the soil and the stars, the rivers, the snow-laden trees, the resting cardinal, the smiles of children making snowmen. And so, the poet, too, is in all these places now that she is “part of that other world, everywhere.”

I imagine that in death we are embraced by the “everywhere” heart of God in some tender and transformative way. Our departed loved ones from shiny black dogs to mothers and dear poets are part of that magnificent, divine embrace of the world—the everywhere. That must be why we sometimes feel our loved ones now departed in some new way: guiding us or whispering in the rustle of trees. They are in God, and God is in us, and in the trees and grass and song birds. And so our beloved ones are close, still, only in a new way.

But these theological musings are mysterious and invisible. Mary Oliver dealt with the visible, the touchable, the particulars; she gave them room to ask questions about God and the world without certainties, only love. I wish more theologians could leave it at that.

At the end of her poem “Life Story”(A Thousand Mornings, 2012), she speaks of this inevitable “outgo” to the world of everywhere as a natural end in a life story:

No, there’s no escaping, nor would I want to escape
this outgo, this foot-loosening, this solution
to gravity and a single shape.
Now I am here, later I will be there.
I will be that small cloud, staring down at the water,
the one that stalls, that lifts its white legs, that
looks like a lamb.

And so we can catch a glimpse of the everywhereness of heaven when we read her poetry. Her poems do taste like heaven, and she is alive in them. But she is more now — she is everywhere — and I see God    smiling in that small cloud of hers.”

Patricia Adams Farmer is the author of Embracing a Beautiful God and the Fat Soul Philosophy novel series, including The Metaphor Maker   , Fat Soul: A Philosophy of S-I-Z-E, and Fat Soul Fridays. With graduate degrees in philosophy, theology, and education, she has taught university courses in philosophy, served as an ordained minister for churches in Ohio and California, and worked with at-risk high school students.

Some of Mary’s Thoughts                     

MESSENGER
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.    Mary Oliver, Thirst

THE SUN…

Have you ever seen                             

anything

in your life

more wonderful

than the way the sun,

every evening,

relaxed and easy,

floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or hills,

or the rumpled sea;

and is gone-

and how it slides again

out of the blackness,

every morning,                                                

on the other side of the world,

like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,

at its perfect imperial distance-

and have you ever felt for anything

such wild love-

do you think there is anywhere, in any language,

a world billowing enough

for the pleasure                                                                   

that fills you,

as the sun

reaches out, as it warms you

as you stand there,

empty-handed-

or have you too

turned from this world-

or have you too

gone crazy for power,

for things?

Mary Oliver

From The Summer day

…Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

Why do people keep asking to see God’s identity papers                                    

When the darkness opening into morning is more than enough?

Mary Oliver, Felicity

Let me keep my distance, always,

From those who think they have the answers.         

Let me keep company always

With those who say

“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,

And bow their heads.”

Mary Oliver

…What the soul is, also                                                  

I believe I will never quite know.

Though I play at the edges of knowing,

truly I know

our part is not knowing,

but looking, and touching, and loving,

which is the way I walked on,

softly,

through the pale-pink morning light.

from Why I Wake Early (2004)

So come to the pond,

Or the river of your imagination,

Or the harbor of your longing.

And put your lip to the world.

And live

Your life.

Mary Oliver

Poetry is a life-cherishing force.

For poems are not words, after all,

But fires for the cold,

Ropes let down to the lost,

Something as necessary as bread 

In the pockets of the hungry.

Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook

Here’s more on Mary Oliver.  Her various books can be found on  amazon