Author: Casey Morris

Changing of the seasons inspires some of the best poetry. Spring to summer, summer to autumn, and the slow thawing of winter are all celebrated in the canon. This last change, the lifting of winter’s cold for the gifts of spring, is perhaps most poignant. Through the ages, poets have captured spring’s essence: its burst of color and bounty, welcoming home of migratory birds, rousing of hibernating species, and regeneration of ecosystems. Spring is nature’s street party, where one delights in friends old and new. As a muse, spring has featured variously for Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Hopkins, St. Vincent Millay, Eliot, and Plath. But for some, spring (and nature itself) gives more than moments of beauty and inspiration. Spring, though lovely and full of aesthetic joys, is merely part of a broader, more majestic whole. This whole, the natural world, is at once familiar but misunderstood. Yet this is a misunderstanding that spurs deeper attention and inquiry. Nature offers itself to us. Nature also offers itself to the poet, its ancient and mysterious knowledge, its order and truth.

One such poet is Mary Oliver. Originally from the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, Oliver spent most of her life and career in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Her poetry is grounded in the Cape Cod land and seascape, particularly its rich biodiversity of flora and fauna. Oliver’s work is also influenced by nineteenth-century American and English Romanticism, specifically the work and thought of Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, Keats, and Shelley. From this vantage, Oliver is a sensitive and keen observer of nature. Her poetry places nature as the spirit’s arbiter, its wellspring of order amid the inner and outer turmoil of an increasingly globalized world. Her poetry likewise draws on the ideals of Transcendentalism: truth and order emerge not as logical deductions from reason, but as upwellings of intuition. Truth is elicited by a devotion and receptivity to nature, its overarching wisdom and power. In “Devotions,” we read poems from some of her earliest collections through the last years of her life. These reveal the development of her thought and style, while detailing a life firmly committed to appreciating and affirming the natural world. 

In “Wild, wild,” Oliver writes about love. The poem’s argument stresses subjective experience and intuition over traditional notions of love. It is also an example of allusion in Oliver’s work, in which she refers to famous love stories from Western literature and opera. Originally published in her 2005 book “New and Selected Poems: Volume Two,” the poem is written in free-verse and does not follow a particular meter or rhyme scheme. Here is “Wild, wild” in its entirety: 

This is what love is: 

The dry rose bush the gardener, in his pruning, missed

Suddenly bursts into bloom. 

A madness of delight; an obsession.

A holy gift, certainly. 

But often, alas, improbable. 

Why couldn’t Romeo have settled for someone else? 

Why couldn’t Tristan and Isolde have refused 

The shining cup

Which would have left peaceful the whole kingdom?

Wild sings the bird of the heart in the forests

    Of our lives.

Over and over Faust, standing in the garden, doesn’t know

Anything that’s going to happen, he only sees

                 The face of Marguerite, which is irresistible.

And wild, wild sings the bird.

The opening image is of a rose bush left unpruned by a gardener. For Oliver, this omission leaves the bush in its native, wild state. The state of nature finds its emotive correlate in “a madness of delight” and “an obsession.” Wild roses and unchecked surges of feeling amount to a “holy gift.” We quickly sense that love, for Oliver, equates to untempered passion and feeling. Love is not checked by doubt, fear, guilt, or any other intervening emotion. Interestingly, Oliver then asks why such a conception of love did not prevail in the past. The allusions to Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” and Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” suggest love is only tragic when adulterated by outside forces. For Shakespeare and Wagner, such forces are an ongoing family feud, sociopolitical convention, medieval magic, and fate itself. Oliver follows this with an image of a bird singing from the heart “in the forests/ of our lives.” The allusions to tragic love contrast the pure innocence of the singing heart. Oliver’s final allusion strengthens this contrast. Goethe’s Faust makes a deal with Mephistopheles to recapture the innocence and vigor of youth. In his exploits, he finally seduces Margeurite in a moment of overwhelming ecstasy. For Oliver, that moment is love itself. Love is not bound by reason, tradition, or any interference. Love, like truth and order, unfolds freely in subjective experience like the petals of a budding rose. Empowering one’s intuition to receive these is the duty of the poet. Nature’s revelatory gifts begin and end in the conscious mind.

“Sea leaves” presents a similar but deeper, more intertwined relation between the poet and nature. Originally published in her 2004 collection “Blue Iris,” the poem recalls one of Oliver’s daily walks along the coast in Provincetown. A prose poem, “Sea Leaves” does not follow a certain meter or rhyme scheme. Here is the piece in its entirety: 

I walk beside the ocean, then turn and continue

Walking just beside the first berm, a few yards from

The water which is at half tide. Eventually I find

What I’m looking for, a plant green and with the 

Flavor of raw salt, and leaves shaped like arrow-

Heads. But before that, down the long shore, I have

Seen many things: shells, waves, once a pair of

Whimbrels, gulls and terns over the water, rabbits

Long-legging it through the thickets above the berm.

I kneel and pick among the green leaves, not taking 

All of any plant but a few leaves from each, until 

My knapsack is filled. Keep your spinach; I’ll have 

This. Then I stroll home. I’ll cook the leaves briefly; 

M. and I will eat some and put the rest into the 

Freezer, for winter. The only thing I don’t know is, 

Should the activity of this day be called labor, or 

Pleasure? 

Recounting one of her daily walks along the shore, “Sea Leaves” immerses us in the rhythms, textures, sights, tastes, and smells of coastal life in Cape Cod. Images of the ocean, its tides, and native species of birds, mammals, and plants show nature in motion. She leaves no trace of human activity. This is nature, its pure coursing and respirations through time. An important image is the plant with “leaves shaped like arrow-/ heads.” This is likely a reference to a plant abundant in the New England region known as Lamb’s Quarters. A member of the amaranth family, which includes quinoa and spinach, Lamb’s Quarters is easily identified by its leaves and is edible. Oliver also collects leaves from other unnamed plants before heading home. She quips “keep your spinach; I’ll have/ this.” Though witty, her remark is laden with meaning. Instead of shopping for food at a grocery store, Oliver gathers it from the source. She only takes what is needed for sustenance, remaining aware of the living things around her. Such actions evoke transcendentalist tenets of communing with nature, self-reliance, and intuition of the good. This explains the final lines. Is her foraging work or pleasure? Though ostensibly left unanswered, Oliver suggests the latter. The only line in the poem containing one word (i.e. “pleasure”) occurs at the end. Likewise, her narration of the walk, her sensual and reverent language confirm the day’s activity was indeed pleasurable. Nature nurtures the body, while it awakens latent joy in the soul.

“When I am among the trees” elaborates on the idea of nature as nurturing and instructive. Originally included in her 2006 collection “Thirst,” this poem displays Oliver’s veneration of nature. Oliver writes in the lens of transcendentalism, specifically Emerson’s belief that God is ubiquitous throughout the universe. The piece has four stanzas without a regular meter. Here is “When I am among the trees” in its entirety: 

When I am among the trees, 

Especially the willows and the honey locust, 

Equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, 

They give off such hints of gladness. 

I would almost say that they save me, and daily. 

I am so distant from the hope of myself, 

In which I have goodness, and discernment, 

And never hurry through the world

    But walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

And call out, “Stay awhile.” 

The light flows from their branches. 

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say, 

“And you too have come

Into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled 

With light, and to shine.” 

The sprawling trees are not merely a source of comfort and “gladness.” They offer salvation from the bustle and distractions of daily life, in which Oliver feels “… so distant from the hope of myself,/ in which I have goodness, and discernment.” The poet subverts the traditionally Christian notion of seeking peace and respite through communion with God. For her, this is achieved through unity with nature. This echoes Emerson’s belief that God and spirituality were only truly experienced in the wild, outside the walls of a church or monastery. This is not quite pantheistic, as Emerson also held God’s essence to be immanent in all of us. Communion with nature arouses this immanence, in which intuition leads to the good and the true. Oliver’s personification of the trees manifests this belief. The trees urge her to “stay awhile” amidst the light, the divine essence flowing “from their branches.” They remind us that this essence is universal, as “… you too have come/ into the world… to be filled/ with light, and to shine.” For Emerson and the transcendentalists, such a belief was grounded in strong aversion to the predominance of Calvinist and Unitarian doctrine in nineteenth-century America. But what about Oliver? For the poet, this belief, the light emanating from the trees and from all things, orients and guides. It affirms the unity and sanctity of creation. Nature circumscribes the physical and spiritual. Transcendence is not realized by seeking forgiveness or prostration of the self. It rather begins and ends with walking “slowly,” partaking of the whole.

“Wild Geese” expands the power of Nature from beneficent and metaphysical to the creative. Characteristic of her later poetry in which observations of nature often mingle with self-reflection, “Wild Geese” is one of Oliver’s most renowned poems. Originally published in her 1986 collection “Dream Work,” the poem is written in free verse with an irregular meter. Here is “Wild Geese” in its entirety: 

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. 

From the start, Oliver challenges the cultural pressure omnipresent in Western society to be “good,” to justify one’s existence with merit and deeds. Instead, she writes “you only have to let the soft animal of your body/ love what it loves.” Transcendentalist themes of immanence reappear here, as Emerson and his contemporaries often insisted on the soul’s inherent virtue and capacity to learn and create. Letting your body “love what it loves” means surrendering to yourself, your desires and goals which are intrinsically good. Oliver continues with lines that read as affirmative yet stoic. Even though we can speak of our despair, “… the world goes on.” The sun and rain still move “… across the landscapes/ over the prairies and deep trees.” Though two distinct philosophies, Stoicism and Transcendentalism do overlap in their acceptance of nature on its own terms. Oliver implies such acceptance by adopting a broader view. The wild geese flying “… high in the clean blue air” further illustrate this departure from the limits of self-interest to a worldly perspective. Yet she does not dismiss pain and adversity; she concludes, “whoever you are, no matter how lonely,/ the world offers itself to your imagination.” No matter what, nature does not leave us comfortless. It offers a path forward, an opportunity for self-realization. Nature stirs the creative will, the imagination’s power to forge the self and world anew. The wild geese call again, but this time they beckon and invite. Nothing is misplaced in nature’s provision. Suffering only strengthens our bond with others, our place in the universe.

In his famous 1842 lecture in New York, Ralph Waldo Emerson called for an American poet to represent the new nation and energize its burgeoning literary scene. Most critics now agree that Emerson’s call was answered by Walt Whitman, one of the foremost American poets of the nineteenth-century. But by the dawn of the next, American and European literature were swept up by the forces of modernism, realism, and surrealism. Romanticism and Transcendentalism were left behind, though remnants were observed in the early poetry of Yeats and Dylan Thomas. In “Devotions,” Mary Oliver continues the work of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, and other transcendentalists. Yet she accomplishes a voice and style distinctly her own. “Devotions” chronicles how her early poetry, its sharp observations of nature, evolves to include more and more subjectivity. Nature prods and rouses the poet’s soul, as the final collections combine her keen eye with an introspective tenor. As seen in “When I am among the trees” and especially in “Wild Geese,” Oliver envisions the same for the reader. Her poetry articulates the serenity of a walk through the woods or beside the sea. She raises to full consciousness the beauty of wild roses or mountains, rivers, and “clear pebbles of the rain.” Like Shelley’s “Mont Blonc” or Keats’ “To Autumn,” “Devotions” reorients our busy lives before the altar of nature and its abundant gifts. Knowledge and order, beauty and truth compose the soul. You do not have to search long and far for your heart’s content. You are as worthy as the rose or soft rain. Look around: you’re already home.

Sources: 

Emerson, Waldo Ralph. “from ‘The Poet.’” Poetry Foundation. 2009. URL: 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69389/from-the-poet

“Mary Oliver.” Poetry Foundation. 2025. URL: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/mary-oliver

Nafici, Saara. “Weed of the month: Lambsquarters.” 2018. Brooklyn Botanic Garden. URL: https://www.bbg.org/article/weed_of_the_month_lambsquarters

Oliver, Mary. “Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver.” 2017. Corsair Poetry.

“People & Ideas: Ralph Waldo Emerson.” PBS. 2010. URL: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/godinamerica/people/ralph-waldo-emerson.html#:~:text=For%20Emerson%2C%20God%20was%20neither,between%20man%2C%20nature%20and%20God.

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“Transcendentalism.” Britannica. URL: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-David-Thoreau/Move-to-Walden-Pond

Vander Zee, Dr. “Tenets of Transcendentalism.” 2025. URL: https://blogs.charleston.edu/american-survey/tenets-of-transcendentalism/