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.
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About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders.
I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs.
I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry.
I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry.
I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope and its anticipatory relationship with the future, and hope as an essential element in learning.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
a wonderful invitation
to behold 🙂
Thank you.
Love this!
She has a way with words.
Reblogged this on Sacred Touches and commented:
Oh, how I love Mary Oliver’s poetry, and this one that Ivon posted yesterday just took my breath away on this early Sunday morning. Enjoy!
Thank you for the re-blog and the lovely comment Natalie.
Yes! 🙂
Thank you Lisa.
Lovely. And thought-provoking too. Thank you, Ivon.
You are welcome Cynthia.
Love Mary Oliver!!!!
Her poetry is always wonderful and brings words to life.