Mary Oliver

I was listening to this interview of Mary Oliver while painting this the other night...Krista Tippett interviewing her, listening to the uncut version about 90 minutes.... Listen to it here:
 http://www.onbeing.org/program/mary-oliver-listening-to-the-world/7267
We really enjoyed it so much, Sometimes we talked, but mostly we listened working quietly together.
Here is a poem for today for you to listen to if you don't have time for the full interview:
  https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/i-happened-to-be-standing-by

Or you can read her words....

I HAPPENED TO BE STANDING

~ Mary Oliver

I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance.  A condition I can’t really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep.  Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why.  And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t pursuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t.  That’s your business.
But I t hought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.