A mussel puller in Monterey designed by Adam Mathias Cole, Corvalis, Oregon. Photo taken by me.
“Breakage”-Mary Oliver
I go down to the edge of the sea.
How everything shines in the morning light.
The cusp of the whelk,
the broken cupboard of the clam,
the opened, blue mussels,
moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred —
and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the
moisture gone.
It’s like a schoolhouse
of little words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop full of moonlight.
How everything shines in the morning light.
The cusp of the whelk,
the broken cupboard of the clam,
the opened, blue mussels,
moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred —
and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the
moisture gone.
It’s like a schoolhouse
of little words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop full of moonlight.
Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.
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How true. A poem is broken until you’ve figured out what it means and put it back together again.
…not that a poem actually “means” anything.
A Mary Oliver poem I love:
[Something]
Something
made this yellow-white lace-mass
that the sea has brought to the shore
and left—
a little like popcorn stuck to itself —
or a ball of prized lace-strings rolled up tight —
or a handful of fingerling shells pasted together
each with a tear where something, perhaps,
fled into the sea. I brought it home
out of the uncombed morning and consulted
among my books. I do not know
what to call this sharpest desire
to discover a name,
but there it is, suddenly, clearly
illustrated on the page, alerting my old heart
to the arrival of another strange and singular
moment of happiness: to know that it was
the egg case of an ocean shell, the
left-handed whelk,
which, in its proper season,
spews forth its progeny in such
glutenous and faintly
glimmering fashion; each one
tears itself free
and what is left rides to shore, one more
sweet-as-honey riddle for the wanderer
whose tongue is agile, whose mind
in the world’s riotous plenty,
wants syntax, connections, lists,
and most of all names to set beside the multitudinous
stars, flowers, sea creatures, rocks, trees.
The egg case of the left-handed whelk
sits on my shelf in front of, as it happens, Blake.
Sometimes I dream
that everything in the world is here, in my room,
in a great closet, named and orderly,
and I am here too, in front of it,
hardly able to see for the flash and the brightness—
and sometimes I am that madcap person clapping my hands and singing;
and sometimes I am that quiet person down on my knees.
[ Mary Oliver]
I LOVE this blog–keep it up. such beautiful poetry to share 🙂
So I think my role on this blog is going to be the person who makes comments that have nothing to do with poetry . . .
I just wanted to say that my grandpa and I were watching a cooking show, and a lady made a very savory mussel dish that involved mussels steamed in butter and white wine, aioli, and a fennel and grapefruit salad.