A Very Mary Variation
A Mashed Potato poem
Featuring borrowed lines from Mary Oliver and placed in a re-arrangement to form a new poem
More than Bones
ordinarily I go to the woods alone
where the owl lives and sometimes calls out
around me the trees stir in their leaves
the moon, in its shining white blouse, rises
while the dead wind rises
don’t think I’m not afraid
you wouldn’t believe what once or twice I have seen
there was a strange fluttering bird, high above, disturbed, hoo-ing
he was singing his death song
something came up out of the dark
the darkness grows and is filled with crooked things
the old ghost stood under the hickories
a plump, dark lady wearing a gown of nails
with a sound like hysterical laughter –
my heart was pounding
death waits for me, I know it
there is a graveyard where everything I am talking about is, now
it’s more than bones
New Arrangement taken, in order, from
these poems:
“Tides”
“It was Early”
“When I am Among the Trees”
“You are Standing at the Edge of the Woods”
“At Black River”
“The World I Live In”
“Flare”
“Red”
“Sometimes”
“Six Recognitions of the Lord”
“The Arrowhead”
“Porcupine”
“Spring”
“May”
“Sometimes”
“Flare”
“To Begin With, the Sweet Grass”
Common Threads 