A Question for Mary Oliver

    We were talking about Mary Oliver today at Ruah - grateful for her life and work, and sad that she is gone. She made poetry look so easy; at least what I've read of hers rolls smoothly off the page, opens up the door, invites you outside. One of our teachers recited her poem, "When I am among the trees," during which an old question raised its hand in my head. Is there a discernible line between appreciation of nature and the projection of ourselves onto it?
   I'm heavily skeptical of our definition of nature, our desire to mythologize it, our interpretation of it. Nonetheless I can't resist doing all those things. Today a squad of gnats hovered by a garden chair. Squirrels chomped up cedar seeds and tossed the seed tails down on my head. Sprouting grass (is that liriope?), moss so brightly green - i can't help but stoop down and brush them with my fingers. A hawk perched and preened on the elm branch outside our classroom window, and we all "oohed" and "ahhed." All these things, I think to myself, are theologically and philosophically mute; it's dishonest of us, I say to myself, to "learn" virtues or wisdom from these things (granted, analogies are great for teaching). I just can't shake, or don't want to shake, the belief that they are "significant" in a mystical way.
   Oliver seems convinced both of something mysteriously meaningful about "nature" and of her own projection of benevolence and innocence onto it. "I would almost say that they save me, and daily," she writes of the trees. I understand this to mean - not that the trees could save her but can't quite - but that she experiences something like salvation while walking through the tress, and wants to attribute more agency and spiritual power to the trees than she's willing to. If I remember correctly, that "almost," that hesitancy to dive completely into an animistic or pantheistic world, comes up frequently in the poems that i've read. She wants to see and experience the world "as it is," no demands, no forcing herself into any relationship. However, she can't interpret her experience in any other way than as a gift. She is in relationship, and she receives abundantly. She seems to acknowledge that part of this gift comes from herself, her own projected loving mother nature, but she's never shy about giving voice to nature, hearing voices in nature. She believed in it. How did she balance the two? Did she lean one way or the other? Did it really matter to her?