{"id":15,"date":"2005-11-08T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-11-08T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/chatteringmind\/2005\/11\/do-you-know-about-mary-oliver.html"},"modified":"2005-11-08T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-11-08T12:00:00","slug":"do-you-know-about-mary-oliver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/chatteringmind\/2005\/11\/do-you-know-about-mary-oliver.html","title":{"rendered":"Do You Know About Mary Oliver?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div>\n<p>Bone<\/p>\n<p>1.<br \/>Understand, I am always trying to figure out<br \/>what the soul is,<br \/>and where hidden,<br \/>and what shape <br \/>and so, last week,<br \/>when I found on the beach<br \/>the ear bone<br \/>of a pilot whale that may have died<br \/>hundreds of years ago, I thought<br \/>maybe I was close<br \/>to discovering something <br \/>for the ear bone<\/p>\n<p>2.<br \/>is the portion that lasts longest<br \/>in any of us, man or whale; shaped<br \/>like a squat spoon<br \/>with a pink scoop where<br \/>once, in the lively swimmer&#8217;s head,<br \/>it joined its two sisters<br \/>in the house of hearing,<br \/>it was only<br \/>two inches long <br \/>and I thought: the soul<br \/>might be like this <br \/>so hard, so necessary <\/p>\n<p>3.<br \/>yet almost nothing.<br \/>Beside me<br \/>the gray sea<br \/>was opening and shutting its wave-doors,<br \/>unfolding over and over<br \/>its time-ridiculing roar;<br \/>I looked but I couldn&#8217;t see anything<br \/>through its dark-knit glare;<br \/>yet don&#8217;t we all know, the golden sand<br \/>is there at the bottom,<br \/>though our eyes have never seen it,<br \/>nor can our hands ever catch it<\/p>\n<p>4.<br \/>lest we would sift it down<br \/>into fractions, and facts <br \/>certainties <br \/>and what the soul is, also<br \/>I believe I will never quite know.<br \/>Though I play at the edges of knowing,<br \/>truly I know<br \/>our part is not knowing,<br \/>but looking, and touching, and loving,<br \/>which is the way I walked on,<br \/>softly,<br \/>through the pale-pink morning light.<\/p>\n<p>~ by Mary Oliver ~<\/p>\n<p>(from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0807068799\/002-2803379-8940006?v=glance&amp;n=283155&amp;n=507846&amp;s=books&amp;v=glance\" target=\"_new\">Why I Wake Early<\/a>, 2004)<\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;padding-bottom:0.25em\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bone 1.Understand, I am always trying to figure outwhat the soul is,and where hidden,and what shape and so, last week,when I found on the beachthe ear boneof a pilot whale that may have diedhundreds of years ago, I thoughtmaybe I was closeto discovering something for the ear bone 2.is the portion that lasts longestin any&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":374,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Do You Know About Mary Oliver? 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