Thirst: Poems

By Mary Oliver

Thirst, a collection of forty-three new poems from Pulitzer Prize-winner Mary Oliver, introduces two new directions in the poet's work. Grappling with grief at the death of her beloved partner of over forty years, she strives to experience sorrow as a path to spiritual progress, grief as part of loving and not its end. And within these pages she chronicles for the frst time her discovery of faith, without abandoning the love of the physical world that has been a hallmark of her work for four decades.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Release date: Oct 15, 2006
• ISBN: 9780807069035

Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver (1935–2019), one of the most popular and widely honored poets in the U.S., was the author of more than thirty books of poetry and prose. Over the course of her long and illustrious career, she received numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for American Primitive in 1984. Oliver also received the Shelley Memorial Award; a Guggenheim Fellowship; an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Achievement Award; the Christopher Award and the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award for House of Light; the National Book Award for New and Selected Poems; a Lannan Foundation Literary Award; and the New England Booksellers Association Award for Literary Excellence. She lived most of her life in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Book preview

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 the 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.

Walking Home from Oak-Head

There is something

    about the snow-laden sky

        in winter

            in the late afternoon

that brings to the heart elation

    and the lovely meaninglessness

        of time.

            Whenever I get home—whenever—

somebody loves me there.

    Meanwhile

        I stand in the same dark peace

            as any pine tree,

or wander on slowly

    like the still unhurried wind,

        waiting,

            as for a gift,

for the snow to begin

    which it does

        at first casually,

            then, irrepressibly.

Wherever else I live—

    in music, in words,

        in the fires of the heart,

            I abide just as deeply

in this nameless, indivisible place,

    this world,

        which is falling apart now,

            which is white and wild,

which is faithful beyond all our expressions of faith,

    our deepest prayers.

        Don’t worry, sooner or later I’ll be home.

            Red-cheeked from the roused wind,

I’ll stand in the doorway

    stamping my boots and slapping my hands,

        my shoulders

            covered with stars.

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the

Reviews for Thirst

[stacymichelle21 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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[jamestomasino · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I adore Mary Oliver's words

[amandanan · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sometimes the Universe gives you exactly what you need, when you need it.

[paul9the9well9read · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

One soaringly wonderful does, a couple of impressive ones, and a bunch of others.

[tangledthread · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have a couple of collections of Mary Oliver's poems. Despite the fact that this is written as she mourns the loss of her partner of 40 some years, this collection seems less preoccupied with death than the earlier collections.
There are some beautiful pieces of hope and faith is this collection.

[mms_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Oliver's tribute to her deceased partner.