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Mary Oliver - Honey At The Table

It fills you with the soft
essence of vanished flowers, it becomes
a trickle sharp as a hair that you follow
from the honey pot over the table

and out the door and over the ground,
and all the while it thickens,

grows deeper and wilder, edged
with pine boughs and wet boulders,
pawprints of bobcat and bear, until

deep in the forest you
shuffle up some tree, you rip the bark,

you float into and swallow the dripping combs,
bits of the tree, crushed bees - - - a taste
composed of everything lost, in which everything lost is found.

Added: on March 11th, 2005 at 7:03 PM | Viewed: 6938 times | Comments (3)


Honey At The Table - Comments and Information

Poet: Mary Oliver
Poem: Honey At The Table

Poem of the Day on:
Jun 17 2003

Comment 3 of 3, added on July 18th, 2006 at 10:39 PM.

I think one only gets this sensation with quality honey! I like how Oliver has the reader traveling back to the source--to make us understand that the honey was a process on many levels. Somehow I thought of amber and how the most prized ones are those that contain generous pieces of organic material.
I think I will buy some wild honey now, read this poem and just enjoy the simple pleasure.

dallas from United States
Comment 2 of 3, added on October 17th, 2005 at 9:27 PM.

Yes! Fresh and imaginative.

Judith Scott from United States
Comment 1 of 3, added on March 11th, 2005 at 7:03 PM.

i beleive this is one of the best poems mary oliver has ever written.

Michaela from United States

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