What Is There Beyond Knowing

Volume Two of Mary Oliver's New and Selected Poems was a Christmas gift. I've wanted it for some time. I bought it and put it away, and when my husband said he wanted to give me a book I told him I had just the one. It's lovely ~ as wonderful as Volume One, which is full of sticky notes that mark my favorites.

This is one of my new favorite poems ~

What Is There Beyond Knowing
by Mary Oliver

What is there beyond knowing that keeps
calling to me? I can't

turn in any direction
but it's there. I don't mean

the leaves' grip and shine or even the thrush's
silk song, but the far-off

fires, for example,
of the stars, heaven's slowly turning

theater of light, or the wind
playful with its breath;

or time that's always rushing forward,
or standing still

in the same-what shall I say-
moment.

What I know
I could put into a pack

as if it were bread and cheese, and carry it
on one shoulder,

important and honorable, but so small!
While everything else continues, unexplained

and unexplainable. How wonderful it is
to follow a thought quietly

to its logical end.
I have done this a few times.

But mostly I just stand in the dark field,
in the middle of the world, breathing

in and out. Life so far doesn't have any other name
but breath and light, wind and rain.

If there's a temple, I haven't found it yet.
I simply go on drifting, in the heaven of the grass
and the weeds.

from New and Selected Poems: Volume Two, 2005, Beacon Press.