Daisies

Unknown

Daisies

It is possible, I suppose, that sometime

we will learn everything

there is to learn: what the world is, for example,

and what it means. I think this as I am crossing

from one field to another, in summer, and the

mockingbird is mocking me, as one who either

knows enough already or knows enough to be

perfectly content not knowing. Song being born

of quest he knows this: he must turn silent

were he suddenly assaulted with answers. Instead




oh hear his wild, caustic, tender warbling ceaselessly

unanswered. At my feet the white-petaled daisies display

the small suns of their center-piece - their, if you don't

mind my saying so - their hearts. Of course

I could be wrong, perhaps their hearts are pale and

narrow and hidden in the roots. What do I know.

But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given,

to see what is plain; what the sun

lights up willingly; for example - I think this

as I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch -

the suitability of the field for the daisies, and the

daisies for the field.

Mary Oliver



More Mary Oliver. More of her poems to punctuate my days. She recalls me to nature, and especially the "personal" natural world. "Science"might quibble, might say she anthropomorphizes, which is to accuse her of being childish and sentimental. I disagree. Seeing an animal or object as having personal meaning to us, having individuality (in the sense of uniqueness and purpose), and of their existence impacting us, as in "saying" or communicating a message to us, all of this seems obvious and true to me. (It's very strange to think that scientists, of all people, whose work involves studying natural things and phenomena closely, and whose lifework is so enjoined with nature that it could be said that it becomes part of their person; and whose attempts to describe and explain what they discover comes more close to pure poetry than any other profession aside from poets themselves, that they have so often been the ones telling us "Don't make this about you! Don't ascribe human characteristics to other forms of life!" is incredible. Impossible. "Take what is given..see what is plain."!  I walk through a field of daisies, and wonder what the mockingbird is singing about. It is singing about something that matters, both to it and to me. I look at a daisy and say it has a heart, meaning that it has a centre, an intention, and a Source - as I do - and recognize the thread between us, the pattern and symmetry we both are part of. Fact is only part of the truth. Proof is in life, in how we live in spite of what we say we think. It's personal. The bird mocks us, "as one who knows enough already or knows enough to be perfectly content not knowing". No matter how much we learn, birdsongs and flower hearts will always be speaking to us of more. Learning "all there is to learn" is not necessary, not the point. The connection, the pattern, the Source, all these, these are better than knowing. As cummings said in "little birds" ,

"may my heart always be open to little
 birds who are the secret of living
whatever they sing is better than to know".