A few years ago, I called to speak with my aunt in the hospital. She was ill and knew she was dying. I was living in Manhattan at the time and as I held the receiver in my hand, I awkwardly fumbled with what to say. Or not to. She made it easy for me. With her bright mind meeting easy heart, her final words to me were these:
In the end, all that matters is love, music, dance, and poetry.
I try to do each one of these things in some form every day.
The love, dance, and music parts come naturally. But poetry? It’s taken me a while to discover it. But now, it’s like a warm cup of tea for the soul. Something tells me my Auntie Marg would love this one…
Of Love
I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not. Sometimes
it was all but ephemeral, maybe only
an afternoon, but not less real for that.
They stay in my mind, these beautiful people,
or anyway people beautiful to me, of which
there are so many. You, and you, and you,
whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe
missed. Love, love, love, it was the
core of my life, from which, of course, comes
the word of the heart. And, oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women
and some – now carry my revelation with you –
were trees. Or places. Or music flying above
the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun
which was the first, and the best, the most
loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into
my eyes, every morning. So I imagine
such love of the world – its fervency, its shining, its
innocence and hunger to give of itself – I imagine
this is how it began.
– Mary Oliver
