Notes on Messenger

The opening poem of Thirst demonstrates strong continuities with Oliver's earlier work. The first line of "Messenger" reads: "My work is loving the world." Even in this line, though, she also introduces the religious themes of this book. In this line, it is her "work" to love the world. This is a good job in this poem (in later poems, it is much harder and sadder). But in noting that it is her "work" (and not something like her purpose in life or the completion of her being) she demonstrates the kind of open-handed engagement with that which is not ultimate characteristic of an orthodox contemplative Christian spirituality.

Oliver brings up a her imperfect condition (and I have to assume that some version of Oliver is the speaker in these poems) asking

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect?

Putting her aging and imperfect self in parallel with her boots and a coat (an theme that is reinforced later in the same poem when she refers to "these body-clothes"), Oliver begins to delineate what belongs in the category of "earth." She goes on, letting go of questions about perfection, to say

. . . Let me keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all of the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude . . .

If this poem can represent Oliver's position relative to the earth, these are the things which mark this poem:

1. An emphasis on awe of physical being (and implicitly awareness) accompanied by concrete images (in about 20 lines, she almost catalogs them: sunflowers, hummingbirds, quickening yeast, blue plums, the clam deep in the speckled sand, my boots, my coat, phoebe, delphinium, sheep in the pasture and the pasture, moth, wren, the sleepy dug-up clam)
2. An awareness of her own earthly imperfection (bodily and moral)
3. A sense that there is important important work to do, termed as "loving the world" and explained as appreciating and being aware of it. It is not just important that "we all live forever" or that nature is beautiful, but it is also important to take note of these things, to talk about these things (which, stepping back, is what the poem itself is doing.
4. An awareness of "work" as non-ultimate and of guilt (or pride, egocentrism seems to be the point) as even less important than the work
5. Interconnectedness with earth ("telling them all, over and over, how it is / that we live forever")
6. A spiritual something underpinning both the sense of wonder and the task at hand, this spiritual something taking precedence over other things. The most important thing now is to be aware and awed and to keep in mind that the most important thing (now or later) is that we "live forever."

What "live forever" means needs some discussion since certainly flowers do not live forever. From another poem when Oliver suggests that "heaven" is not her goal, we can take a hint that she might mean something about "eternal life" being eternally present. Certainly she doesn't mean anything that systematic, I think, or directly paraphrase-able. She means something about the spirit, though.

I'm having some trouble identifying exactly what the main things here are than need to be pointed out. In this poem, there are hardly any visible tensions. There is the tension inherent in having an worn body. And there is a tension in calling "loving the world" work. One of the things that makes this poem powerful is the fact that the speaker is certainly not naive to what she is saying.

She gives a bit of attention here to her own body, more than she usually does in a poem, mentioning her self as "no longer young" (age is quickly associated with the physical affects of aging), and she mentions her heart, mind, these body-clothes, and her mouth.

Love, astonishment, joy, rejoicing, gratitude.

I'm not sure what it is that I want to say about this poem. And I'm not sure what this poem says about the rest of the book. Certainly that it introduces important themes that can be best understood within the religious context in which Oliver situates herself.

What are all of the ingredients for love? since she mentions that they are all there. There are the mind, heart, body-clothes, mouth and, presumably, all the things to be astonished at, as well, perhaps, as the spiritual context in which love is possible.

It is probably not best to read this poem in isolation from the other poems in the book, including or especially the sadder ones. Still, it seems that this joyful poem, embracing earth in loving work, is good poem to read as representative of one of the poles of the themes in the book.

How am I to read this book? Do I read the poems as simultaneous statements. Certainly not. I also can't read them as disconnected. And it doesn't seem well advised to read the book from fron to back as the log of some sort of spiritual journey or progression. There certainly does seem to be some progression. But I don't know from what to what. This poem in particular takes one tone when read first and another when read again after the darker poems.