Poetry Journal #15 - Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches --
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries with it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead --
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging --

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted --

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

-Mary Oliver, Dream Work

What surprises me about this poem is the quantity of punctuation. For such a short poem there is a large number of commas and periods. I think that the poet uses the punctuation as a way of creating a slow reading of the poem. The poem is titled "Morning Poem" and has an overall feeling of a slow awakening, and I believe that the poet's use of punctuation accents that nicely.

I enjoy the lines "If your spirit carries with it the thorn that is heavier than lead." It's a very artful way to articulate a cynicism or depression that most people find present in their spirits from time to time.

I think that overall, the poet's message in the poem is that, despite any difficulty you may feel in yourself or in the outside the world, each morning that you awaken is a prayer answered, is a blessing. From the beauty of the way light changes leaves from heaps of ash in the darkness to defined works of stained glass to the way black fabric becomes ponds and islands with lilies, the morning brings life and light to the world, and to you.