Poem of the Week

Where Does The Temple Begin, Where Does It End?

By Mary Oliver

There are things you can’t reach. But
you can reach out to them, and all day long.

The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God.

And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.

The snake slides away; the fish jumps, like a little lily,
out of the water and back in; the goldfinches sing
from the unreachable top of the tree.

I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.

Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around
as though with your arms open.

And thinking: maybe something will come, some
shining coil of wind,
or a few leaves from any old tree–
they are all in this too.

And now I will tell you the truth.
Everything in the world
comes.

At least, closer.

And, cordially.

Like the nibbling, tinsel-eyed fish; the unlooping snake.
Like goldfinches, little dolls of goldfluttering around the corner of the sky

of God, the blue air.

***

The formatting of this poem is actually a bit different than I'm able to manage in HTML. It's worth it to look up the print version.

Several years ago, just after I graduated from college, I got into a discussion with a friend about the "right" way to write religious poetry. Most poems on religious subjects I find a bit too saccharine and sappy. Mary Oliver's "Where Does The Temple Begin, Where Does It End?" gets it right - it communicates a strong sense of wonder at both the natural world and the hand that crafted it.