Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

Or is this, in the last instance, what life really is about? Are we nothere on earth to have the opportunity to perceive, to smell or touch? Is notthe world recreated and known through our human experiencing—and inno other way? Is this not what we wish our poets to lead us to?From a low hill in the Ahti plains of East Africa I once watched thevast herds of wild animals grazing in soundless stillness, as theyhad done from time immemorial, as if I were the first man, the firstcreature, to know that all this is. The entire world around me wasstill in its primeval state; it did not know that it was. And then, inthat one moment in which I came to know, the world sprang intobeing; without that moment it would never have been. All natureseeks this goal and finds it fulfilled in man, but only in the mosthighly developed and most fully conscious man. 1Mary Oliver is a poet of this vocation. Her whole being seems devotedto speaking to us so that we too might awaken to the world aroundand within us, becoming fully conscious human beings. Her language surprisesus, her images resonate in us, and through it all her intention seemsso pure. She does not entice us with beauty. Her writing is never crypticor elitist. She writes for us with great wisdom, as a kind of dear guide andteacher, with a truly unsentimental compassion for all life.–––––––––––––To read the work of Mary Oliver, it may be best to begin with New andSelected Poems, Beacon Press, 1992. She made the choice of poems herselffrom her earlier books. There are two books on prosody, as well as severalmore recent books of prose and poems: Blue Pastures, White Pine, WestWing, and Winter Hours.1. Jung, Carl. Psychological Reflections. Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1974.246