{"id":3410,"date":"2009-03-13T07:32:27","date_gmt":"2009-03-13T16:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/?p=3410"},"modified":"2009-03-13T07:37:52","modified_gmt":"2009-03-13T16:07:52","slug":"this-beautiful-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/this-beautiful-world\/","title":{"rendered":"This beautiful world"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s so much bad news out there today, what’s a person to do? One place to find solace and inspiration is in Mary Oliver<\/a>‘s poetry. Her newest book, ‘The Truro Bear<\/em><\/a>‘<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0is, as one reviewer states of her work, ‘an excellent antidote for the excesses of civilization’.<\/em> Does anyone love the natural world as much as Oliver? Her poems about bears, snakes, frogs and possums make me want to live outside and never come back in. And once you are outside, the feeling is similar to a\u00c2\u00a0Greg Brown<\/a> lament from one of his songs about his childhood growing up in Iowa and being called into supper too early; ‘it’s not dark yet…it’s adult<\/em> dark’.<\/p>\n

There’s a sublime poem about going out in the middle of the night to meet deer walking in her woods. If you’ve ever come across these gentle animals in the wild, her words will prime those memories. It’s called ‘Five AM in the Pinewoods<\/a><\/em>‘<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Even though most of my paintings are derived from nature, we often need a poet’s voice to remind us of our own wondrous world.<\/p>\n

‘Carrying the Snake to the Garden’<\/em> \u00c2\u00a0-Mary Oliver from ‘The Truro Bear’<\/em><\/p>\n

In the cellar<\/p>\n

was the smallest snake<\/p>\n

I have ever seen.<\/p>\n

It coiled itself<\/p>\n

in a corner<\/p>\n

and watched me<\/p>\n

with eyes<\/p>\n

like two little stars<\/p>\n

set into coal,<\/p>\n

and a tail<\/p>\n

that quivered.<\/p>\n

One step<\/p>\n

of my foot<\/p>\n

and it fled<\/p>\n

like a running shoelace,<\/p>\n

but a scoop of the wrist<\/p>\n

and I had it<\/p>\n

in my hand.<\/p>\n

I was sorry<\/p>\n

for the fear,<\/p>\n

so I hurried<\/p>\n

upstairs and out the kitchen door<\/p>\n

to the warm grass<\/p>\n

and the sunlight<\/p>\n

and the garden.<\/p>\n

It turned and turned<\/p>\n

in my hand<\/p>\n

but when I put it down<\/p>\n

it didn’t move.<\/p>\n

I thought<\/p>\n

it was going to flow<\/p>\n

up my leg<\/p>\n

and into my pocket.<\/p>\n

I thought, for a moment,<\/p>\n

as it lifted its face,<\/p>\n

it was going to sing.<\/p>\n

And then it was gone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s so much bad news out there today, what’s a person to do? One place to find solace and inspiration is in Mary Oliver‘s poetry. Her newest book, ‘The Truro Bear‘\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0is, as one reviewer states of her work, ‘an excellent … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[472,224,471,467,474,469,127,470,468,473],"class_list":["post-3410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-meanderings","tag-deer","tag-gardens","tag-greg-brown","tag-mary-oliver","tag-natural-world","tag-nature","tag-poetry","tag-snakes","tag-the-truro-bear","tag-woods"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3410"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3427,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410\/revisions\/3427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furiousdreams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}