You are cordially invited to read Mary Oliver’s poem What Is The Greatest Gift? PBS network in its MASTER SERIES recently chronicled Mary Oliver’s life. I have read Mary’s poems for years and often return to favorites to read a second and third time. In the PBS program I learned about facets of Mary’s life that I previously didn’t know. What Is The Greatest Gift stimulated me to think about many of my friends and what I know and do not know about them and to “clap my hands” and wonder about what I don’t know about other people – even those close to me.
Tim
"WHAT IS THE GREATEST GIFT"
By Mary Oliver
What is the greatest gift?
Could it be the world itself — the oceans, the meadowlark,
the patience of the trees in the wind?
Could it be love, with its sweet clamor of passion?
Something else — something else entirely
holds me in thrall.
That you have a life that I wonder about
more than I wonder about my own.
That you have a life — courteous, intelligent —
that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own.
That you have a soul — your own, no one else’s —
that I wonder about more than I wonder about my own.
So that I find my soul clapping its hands for yours
more than my own.
Writer: Mary Oliver
Photographs: Toni Olson, Magnific, Anastasia Kylar, Earth NASA
Graphic Designer: Tim Olson
Editors: Lorelie & Tim Olson
NESTER url: https://notesfromanester.com
