Poetry Sunday: Goldenrod by Mary Oliver

Let's have another Mary Oliver poem, shall we? One that celebrates the season and the plant much loved by bees. And me. 

Goldenrod

by Mary Oliver

On roadsides,

in fall fields,

in rumpy bunches,

saffron and orange and pale gold,

in little towers,

soft as mash,

sneeze-bringers and seed-bearers,

full of bees sand yellow beads and perfect flowerlets

and orange butterflies.

I don’t suppose

much notice comes of it, except for honey,

and how it heartens the heart with its

blank blaze.

I don’t suppose anything loves it, except, perhaps,

the rocky voids

filled by its dumb dazzle.

For myself,

I was just passing by, when the wind flared

and the blossoms rustled,

and the glittering pandemonium

leaned on me.

I was just minding my own business

when I found myself on their straw hillsides,

citron and butter-colored,

and was happy, and why not?

Are not the difficult labors of our lives

full of dark hours?

And what has consciousness come to anyway, so far,

that is better than these light-filled bodies?

All day

on their airy backbones

they toss in the wind,

they bend as though it was natural and godly to bend,

they rise in a stiff sweetness,

in the pure peace of giving

one’s gold away.