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add on a poem to the Mary Oliver page


  • mermaid7
    Aug 27 4:08 PM 2006
    Reply
    Would it be possible to add "Seven White Butterflies" on the Mary Oliver list of poems? I heard this poem read at a funeral service five years ago, and just never forgot the unexpected beauty and correctness of this poem for that moment.
    Thanks

  • rufina caraid
    August 27, 2006
    Reply

    7 White Butterflies

    I've tried to find a copy of this poem but have not been able to do so.
    We walk a fine line here as she is still living (?) but I have actually featured her Wild Geese as a showcased poem (to come) - incredible writer.
    If you can find the poem mermaid please post it here.
    thanks
    Von

  • mermaid7
    August 28, 2006
    Reply
    if there are issues with posting...I do not want to see you get into any problems. I will type the copy so at least you can appreciate its beauty:

    Seven White Butterflies

    Seven white butterflies
    delicate in a hurry look
    how they bang the pages
    of their wings as they fly
    to the fields of mustard yellow
    and orange and plain
    gold all eternity
    is in the moment that is what
    Blake said Whitmans said such
    wisdom in the agitated
    motion of the mind seven
    dancers floating
    even as worms toward
    paradise see how they banter
    and riot and rise
    to the trees flutter
    lob their wite bodies into
    the invisible wind weightless
    lacy willing
    to deliver themselves unto
    the universe now each settles
    down on a yellow thumb on a
    brassy stem now
    all seven are rapidly sipping
    from the golden towrs who
    would have thought it could be so easy?

    This poem is in her book West Wind

  • rufina caraid
    August 28, 2006
    Reply

    audio site

    http://www.bridgewater.edu/~sgallowa/386/oliver.htm

    I found this site whilst searching - lots of audio by the poet herself.

  • mermaid7
    August 28, 2006
    Reply
    thanks...will check it out.
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