After reading a profile on poet Mary Oliver in New Yorker magazine, I set out to get her works from the library. Reading her poetry, it’s not difficult to see that she holds nature as a sacred thing, consistently more pertinent than most human pursuits.
In the poem “Black Oaks,” from the collection titled Blue Iris, she writes: Listen, says ambition / nervously shifting her weight / from one boot to another / why don’t you get going? / For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees / And to tell the truth / I don’t want to let go of the wrists of idleness / I don’t want to sell my life for money / I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.
I have been asked, many times, why I have chosen to spend hours, days and weeks each month, giving away the moments of my life to write about musicians and list performances for no remuneration. Sometimes I wonder, “Am I a fool?” Then, a new burst of raw joy from a musical sorcerer lights me up and I chase the words to express the feeling, fleeing all doubt.
While most of us don’t have the freedom of a poet — the rent must be paid, after all — as we gather in the cathedrals of nature, in the fields, under trees, under skies of hallowed clouds, to genuflect before the lords and goddesses of song, every one of us may say, for just those few days, in those hours, in those moments … “I did not sell my life for money.”
