“Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who make the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of , even, the

miserable and the crotchety —

 

best preacher that ever was,

dear star, that just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light —

good morning, good morning, good morning

Watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness.”

-Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

There is  a note at the end of this volume, Why I Wake Early, that says: “On the eve of the publication of her third volume of poems, Twelve Moons, Archibald MacLeish wrote to Mary Oliver: “You have indeed entered the kingdom. You have done something better than create your own world: you have discovered the world we all live in and do not see and cannot feel.”  Mary Oliver must have always been compelled to wake early to take it all in, to discover, and then discover anew, in each moment, our magnificent and glorious world…  Her words LIVE and help us to live each moment, even in her absence.