While we're talking about Mary Oliver, she lists examples from her notebook in Blue Pastures. A few I liked:

Though you have not seen them, there are swans, even
now
tapping from the egg and emerging
into the sunlight.
They know who they are.

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When will you have a little pity for
every soft thing
that walks through the world,
yourself included?

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After a cruel childhood, one must reinvent oneself.
Then re-imagine the world.
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van Gogh--he considered everything, and still went
crazy with rapture
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When I was young, I was attracted to sorrow. It seemed interesting. It seemed an energy that would take me somewhere. Now I am older, if not old, and I have sorrow. I see that is has no energy of its own, but uses mine furtively. I see that it is leaden, without breath, and repetitious, and unsolvable.

And now I see that I am sorrowful about only a few things, but over and over.

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Fairy tales--the great difference is between doing something, and doing nothing. Always, in such tales, the hero or heroine does something.
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Give me that dark moment I will carry it everywhere
like a mouthful of rain
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I would like to do whatever it is that presses the essence from the hour.
posted by Sandy at 7:10 PM