Poems about Recovery --the Healing with Poetry

April is Poetry Month so,

“Let us remember…that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both.” --Christian Wiman

For this Poetry Month I’ll be posting some poems about recovery, and growth and how we change our lives. I hope you’ll make them part of your daily meditation and that you will share them too.

  

We begin with Mary Oliver who writes in “The Journey” about the experience that many of us had that got us here:

One day you finally knew


what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting
their bad advice-


though the whole house

began to tremble


and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,


though their melancholy
was terrible.


it was already late
enough,

and a wild night,


and the road full of fallen
branches

and stones.
But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice


which you slowly
recognized as your own,


that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper


into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do

--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Recovery Poems for April

April is Poetry Month so,

“Let us remember…that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both.” --Christian Wiman

For this Poetry Month I’ll be adding some poems about recovery, and growth and changing our lives. I hope you’ll make them part of your meditation and that you will share them too.

We begin with Mary Oliver who writes in “The Journey” about the experience that many of us had that got us here: The Journey

One day you finally knew


what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting
their bad advice-


though the whole house

began to tremble


and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,


though their melancholy
was terrible.


t was already late
enough,

and a wild night,


and the road full of fallen
branches

and stones.
But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice


which you slowly
recognized as your own,


that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper


into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do

--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

April is Poetry Month: Wild Geese

So now we will close our April Poetry Month with another poem by Mary Oliver. This might be one to memorize and press--like a flower --into your heart.


Wild Geese

You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees 
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
love what it loves. 
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. 
Meanwhile the world goes on. 
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain 
are moving across the landscapes, 
over the prairies and the deep trees, 
the mountains and the rivers. 
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, 
are heading home again. 
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 
the world offers itself to your imagination, 
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place 
in the family of things.


---Mary Oliver

April is Poetry Month

April is Poetry Month so,

“Let us remember…that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both.” --Christian Wiman

For this Poetry Month I’ll be adding some poems about recovery, and growth and changing our lives. I hope you’ll make them part of your meditation and that you will share them too.

We begin with Mary Oliver who writes in “The Journey” about the experience that many of us had that got us here:

The Journey by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew


what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting 
their bad advice-


though the whole house

began to tremble


and you felt the old tug 
at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried 
with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,


though their melancholy
 was terrible.

i
t was already late 
enough,

and a wild night,


and the road full of fallen 
branches

and stones.
But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn 
through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice


which you slowly
 recognized as your own,


that kept you company
 as you strode deeper and deeper


into the world, 
determined to do
 the only thing you could do

--
determined to save 
the only life you could save.

Praying

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

~ Mary Oliver ~

Married to Amazement

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

~ Mary Oliver ~