Mary Oliver has a way of starting with an idea and then she shifts it so well. She asks questions that provoke more questions than certain answers. Wouldn’t the heavens not have shaken their fist? I think about the ways that the heavens could shake their fist, but Nature does not.
There is patience. What are the little with which the heavens speak of peace. They are countless and, when I open my heart, they find me so easily.
How do the heavens invite us as they open up and invite?
There are days
when the sun goes down
like a fist,
though of course
if you see anything
in the heavens
in this way
you had better get
your eyes checked
or, better, still,
your diminished spirit.
The heavens
have no fist,
or wouldn’t they have been
shaking it
for a thousand years now,
and even
longer than that,
at the dull, brutish
ways of mankind—
heaven’s own
creation?
Instead: such patience!
Such willingness
to let us continue!
To hear,
little by little,
the voices—
only, so far, in
pockets of the world—
suggesting
the possibilities
of peace?
Keep looking.
Behold, how the fist opens
with invitation.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 