It's the third Thursday of the month so I'd like to welcome you to A Gathering of Poetry.
I love fried clams but don't have them very often. Quite coincidentally, I ate a plate full of fried fried clams and came upon this new-to-me Mary Oliver poem on the same day. After reading it, I'm not sure I'll be able to enjoy fried clams without guilt, but I do like the poem (almost as much as I like fried clams).
by Mary Oliver
Each one is a small life, but sometimes long, if its
place in the universe is not found out. Like us, they
have a heart and a stomach; they know hunger, and
probably a little satisfaction too. Do not mock them
for their gentleness, they have a muscle that loves
being alive. They pull away from the light. They pull
down. They hold themselves together. They refuse to
open.
But sometimes they lose their place and are tumbled
shoreward in a storm. Then they pant, they fill
with sand, they have no choice but must open the
smallest crack. Then the fire of the world touches
them. Perhaps, on such days, they too begin the
terrible effort of thinking, of wondering who, and
what, and why. If they can bury themselves again in
the sand they will. If not, they are sure to perish,
though not quickly. They also have resources beyond
the flesh; they also try very hard not to die.
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Oliver, Mary, “Clam”, What Do We Know: Poems and Prose Poems. Da Capo Press, 2002.
You can read more about the poet here.
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Thanks for reading and joining us for our monthly Gathering of Poetry. Be sure to visit Kym and Kat so you can gather more poetry and you can add your link below if you would like to share one of your favorite poems. The more the merrier!
Well. That certainly does put a whole new "spin" on fried clams! I love Mary Oliver's poetry . . . even when they do make me feel a little sad about what I'm eating. (Once when Erin was in kindergarten, we were eating fish for dinner. She held up the bite of fish on her fork and looked at it wistfully and sighed, saying "I'll try not to think that once you swam." And then she popped the bite in her mouth and said, "yum.") XO
ReplyDeleteHmm, I never realized how much I have in common with clams!
ReplyDeleteWell indeed! (I too love fried clams... oh boy.) I love how Mary Oliver makes me think in a different way about something familiar. XO
ReplyDeleteI think now I feel guilty for eating clams! LOL!
ReplyDeleteit does seem like the less we know about some things the happier we are?! and surely Mary Oliver ate clams her whole life, too!
ReplyDeleteA Mary Oliver poem is always a beautiful thing to read. Thanks for sharing this one.
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