Some poets have this power. They can help us stop and discover moments of spaciousness free of mundane troubles, free of our mind with its automatic reactions and obsessive self-concerns. One such poet is Mary Oliver (September 10, 1935–January 17, 2019), winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, who is known for her intimate observations of the natural world. Her poetry draws our attention to the small things of everyday life and teaches us the art of being alive in this moment, here and now. This art comes vibrantly alive in the poem “Mornings at Blackwater” included in the collection Red Bird. Read here by the poet in her heartwarming and comforting voice. Please enjoy!

MORNINGS AT BLACKWATER
by Mary Oliver

For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond.
It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
the feet of ducks.

And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.

What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.

So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,
and put your lips to the world.

And live
your life.

Complement this lovely mini meditation, an integral part of Red Bird collection of poems, with Mary Oliver’s tribute to her disobedient and infinitely charming dog Percy.

How do we read a haiku? A surprising primer on this art comes from a slim volume by Yoel Hoffmann titled Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death. In the introductory part of the book, we learn that a haiku consists of seventeen syllables written in three lines and traditionally evokes an image of the natural world. It is the shortest verse form found in either the East or the West.

A good haiku may contain more than one sentence but always paints one picture, and the poet needs great clarity of vision to make it a masterpiece with only a few brush strokes on the canvas of his imagination. Yoel Hoffmann writes:

Since about the sixteenth century, three conventions have become universally accepted: 1) the haiku describes a single state or event; 2) the time of the haiku is the present; and 3) the haiku refers to images connected to one of the four seasons [of the year].

Matsuo Basho, foremost among haiku poets, once said, “About the pine, learn from the pine; about the reed, learn from the reed.” This famous dictum instructs the poet to become unconscious of himself to see the object of his craft with absolute clarity, as it is in and of itself. To clarify what this means, Yoel Hoffmann cites a modern haiku scholar Kenneth Yasuda who wrote:

When one happens to see a beautiful sunset or lovely flower, for instance, one is often so delighted that one merely stands still. This state of mind might be called “ah-ness,” for the beholder can only give one breath-long exclamation of delight, ‘Ah!’ The object has seized him and he is aware only of the shapes, the colors, the shadows… There is here no time or place explicitly for reflection for judgments, or for the observer’s feelings…. To render such a moment is the intent of all haiku, and the discipline of the form.

So a haiku attempts to say something without saying it. What remains unsaid tells more than the words but is unclear without them. Take, for example, the following haiku by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694). It is mid-winter, at twilight, and Basho stands on the seashore while patches of light on the waves reflect the setting sun and wild ducks call:

Darkening sea:
a mallard’s call
sounds dimly white.

Haiku poetry resounds with endless meanings because it often attains that perfect simplicity sought for in philosophy, religion, literature, and art. In the next haiku by Oshima Ryota (1718-1787), for a fraction of a second, the gap between reality and illusion, the eternal and the momentary, closes:

Moon in the water
Somersaults
and streams away.

A haiku poet observes what others scarcely see. How many of us would have noticed what Shiba Fukio (1903-1930) describes in the next poem — the split-second gap between the horse’s first step and the movement of the carriage?

A barley wagon
lags—then leaps
behind the horse.

And finally, some may say that a poem as short as the haiku can’t convey the depth and complexity of our feelings. But hasn’t Ochi Etsujin (b. 1656) captured, in the following lines, an entire “scene from a marriage?”

Autumn evening:
‘Isn’t it time,’ she comes and asks,
‘to light the lantern?’

Complement Japanese Death Poems, an enlightening and educational read, with the short three-minute video below that goes a bit deeper into the technical side of writing a haiku, and then revisit Mortimer Adler’s advice on how to read a book and Edward Hirches’ meditation on how to read a poem.

Robert Frost (March 26, 1874–January 29, 1963) is perhaps one of the few poets who needs no introduction. Author of many enduring and iconic poems in American letters, he continues to enrich and ennoble our literary lives. But few of us know that behind the public persona of a celebrated poet and winner of four Pulitzer Prizes, is a man whose life was laced with tragedy, entwined with loss, and twisted with grief.

His father, a newspaperman, died of tuberculosis when Frost was eleven, leaving the family destitute; his mother, whose Swedenborgian mysticism was a major influence on her son, died of cancer when Frost was twenty-six. His younger sister Jeanie had to be committed to a mental hospital in 1920, and Frost himself feared at times for his own sanity. Mental illness ran in his family. His daughter Irma was also committed to a mental hospital, and his son Carol committed suicide. Another son died of cholera at age eight, and two of his daughters also died young.

Yet despite all this pain — and more so because of all this pain — he was able to write the most memorable and life-giving poems we know today. One of them sprang to my mind after a recent loss of someone whose teachings have influenced my meditation and mindfulness practice for years. It’s titled “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and included in the collection New Hampshire. Recited here by Frost himself in his warm aged voice. Please enjoy!

STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” an integral part of New Hampshire collection of poems, remains a monumental work of poetic genius. Complement with Henry David Thoreau on why he went to live in the woods, Richard Louv on the spiritual necessity of nature for the young, Deborah Underwood and Cindy Derby’s water color meditation on our inseparable link to nature.

It is true we never know the real value of something until we lose it. And it is equally true we never know how much we love someone until we lose them. When the unthinkable happens, and our hearts are aching and beating in pain, “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep” will be a constant source of healing and consolation.

Written by a poet who knew loss, felt loss, and befriended loss, it encapsulates an unshakable belief in the interconnectedness of all that is. Its message of hope and renewal has helped hundreds of thousands find peace of mind.

Read the original poem below and then treat yourself to an uplifting performance of “Do Not Stand by My Grave and Weep” by One Voice Children’s Choir under the direction of Masa Fukuda and music by Robert Prizeman.

Both versions, although slightly different in tone and content, help us believe that we are never alone and our loved ones are always with us.

DO NO STAND AT MY GRAVE AND WEEP

   Do not stand
      By my grave, and weep.
   I am not there,
      I do not sleep —
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, up-lifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight,
I am the day transcending night.
   Do not stand
      By my grave, and cry —
   I am not there,
      I did not die.

Now listen to the performance, one of the most touching hyms to all creation that will nurse you back to life:

Complement “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep” with the art of jisei, a Japanese death poem, and then revisit spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle’s meditation on the perpetual cycles of renewal in nature.