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Mary Oliver Quotes about Grief

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We shake with joy, we shake with grief. What a time they have, these two housed as they are in the same body.

We shake with joy, we shake with grief. What a time they have, these two housed as they are in the same body.

Mary Oliver
Grief, Two, Joy
Mary Oliver (2009). “Evidence: Poems”, p.13, Beacon Press

How many mysteries have you seen in your lifetime? How many nets pulled full over the boat's side, each silver body ready or not falling into submission? How many roses in early summer uncurling above the pale sands then falling back in unfathomable willingness? And what can you say? Glory to the rose and the leaf, to the seed, to the silver fish. Glory to time and the wild fields, and to joy. And to grief's shock and torpor, its near swoon.

Mary Oliver
Summer, Grief, Fall
Mary Oliver (2017). “Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver”, p.132, Penguin

And it is exceedingly short, his galloping life. Dogs die so soon. I have my stories of that grief, no doubt many of you do also. It is almost a failure of will, a failure of love, to let them grow old-or so it feels. We would do anything to keep them with us, and to keep them young. The one gift we cannot give.

Mary Oliver
Dog, Grief, Giving
Mary Oliver (2013). “Dog Songs: Deluxe Edition”, p.62, Penguin

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