Mary Oliver – The Sun

In the sacred Buddhist text, the Dhamapada, the Buddha suggests that wealth is an inner state, asserting that contentment is the greatest wealth we can acquire. The poet Mary Oliver found much bounty–awe and wisdom especially–through her intimate relationship with nature. In ‘The Sun,’ she reverses the conventional understanding of renunciation, of “turning from this world.” While we usually associate those who “turn away” from the world as those who first reject human commerce-focused life, here, Oliver suggests that the first turning away is disconnecting and devaluing our original interwoven connection with nature. In the final few lines, Oliver turns to face us, provoking us with a direct question: In our quest for satisfaction, would we be wise to reconsider what we have turned away from and what we have been running toward?

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The Sun

Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?

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