“Poem (the spirit likes to dress up) The spirit likes to dress up like this: ten fingers, ten toes,shoulders, and all the rest at night in the black branches, in the morningin the blue branches of the world. It could float, of course, but would ratherplumb rough matter. Airy and shapeless thing, it needs the metaphor of the body,lime and appetite, the oceanic fluids; it needs the body’s world, instinctand imagination and the dark hug of time, sweetness and tangibility,to be understood, to be more than pure light that burns where no one is –so it enters us – in the morning shines from brute comfort like a stitch of lightning;and at night lights up the deep and wondrous drownings of the body like a star.”

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About Mary Oliver

American poet

Mary Oliver was an American poet whose work reached wide audiences, and who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 and the National Book Award in 1992. She is known for poetry shaped by close attention to the natural world. Her writing draws much of its force from nature, solitary walks, and a lasting sense of wonder. It is marked by vivid images, spiritual feeling, and plain language, qualities that made her one of the best-selling poets in American history.

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Books by Mary Oliver

Dog Songs

2014

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A thousand mornings

2012

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Blue horses

2014

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Devotions

2017

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