I try to be good but sometimes a person just has to break out and act like the wild and springy thing one used to be. It's impossible not to remember wild an want it back.
Mary OliverRead
Do you love this world? Do you cherish your humble and silky life? Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath? Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden, and softly, and exclaiming of their dearness, fill your arms with the white and pink flowers, with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling, their eagerness to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are nothing, forever?
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote invites appreciation for the beauty of the world and the fleeting nature of life.
Mary Oliver's quote is a reflective contemplation on the joys of existence and the intricate beauty found in nature. It emphasizes cherishing the small moments of life, such as the appreciation of flowers in a garden, while acknowledging their transient beauty and the underlying terror that may accompany such enjoyment. This invites readers to engage deeply with their surroundings and to recognize the preciousness of every moment, as life is ultimately ephemeral.
Themes
NatureAppreciationBeautyLifeFleeting
In practice
Example use cases
In a graduation speech about cherishing the moment.
More from Mary Oliver
All quotes →At the time I was growing up, literature was involved with the so-called confessional poets. And I was not interested in that. I did not think that specific and personal perspective functioned well for the reader at all.
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I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished.
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For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.
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If I have any lasting worth, it will be because I have tried to make people remember what the Earth is meant to look like.
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Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.
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