Remembering Your Wildness

Your weekly Mary Oliver poem and prompt.

Welcome to Dream Work: A Year-Long Writing Journey with Mary Oliver

In the spirit of immersing myself deeper in the practice and studying of nature poetry,
I am embarking on a year-long writing journey with Mary Oliver, reading a single poem of hers each day and then writing one in response to it.

I’m bringing you along on the journey. Every Sunday, I share a Mary Oliver poem, one of mine I’ve written in response, along with a poetry prompt for you to write your own in conversation with her.

Each week, we will gather in the comments section and share our Mary Oliver inspired poetry with each other.

Photo by Gabe Pierce on Unsplash

Coyote in the Dark, Coyotes Remembered
Mary Oliver

The darkest thing
met me in the dark.
It was only a face
and a brace of teeth
that held no words,
though I felt a salty breath
sighing in my direction.
Once, in an autumn that is long gone,
I was down on my knees
in the cranberry bog
and heard, in that lonely place,
two voices coming down the hill,
and I was thrilled
to be granted this secret,
that the coyotes, walking together
can talk together,
for I thought, what else could it be?
And even though what emerged
were two young women, two-legged for sure
and not at all aware of me,
their nimble, young women tongues
telling and answering,
and though I knew
I had believed something probably not true,
yet it was wonderful
to have believed it.
And it has stayed with me
as a present once given is forever given.
Easy and happy they sounded,
those two maidens of the wilderness
from which we have–
who knows to what furious, pitiful extent–
banished ourselves.

Photo by Jon Sailer on Unsplash

Spring Animal
Ash Kilback

In early days of spring, when the ice on the lake starts to crack in bolting echoes and tingles the hairs inside the coyote’s ear, they stumble out of their dens and gather 
on nests of thick dry grass at the edge of the hill behind the yard. At dusk, when 
I return from a long walk down by the water, I feel the darkness coming in on hind 
legs, the air cools and grows a set of teeth. Their howls erupt, one chasing the other, 
and the sound is so close, I think I am standing inside the throat of wildness itself.  
We are the same animal when the sun goes down, shaking off winter in a restless tantrum, itching for spring's scent, waiting for the ground to shift and the world 
to break open into a glorious feast.

---

This Week’s Prompt: Remembering Your Wildness

This week, write a response poem inspired by Mary Oliver’s, Coyote in the Dark, Coyotes Remembered about remembering your own inner wildness — draw your inspiration from the coyote or wolf — write your poem as if you are retracing the scent of instinct, growing a coat of fur, running on four legs, or howling into the dark.

Come back to the comments on this post next Sunday, March 1st and share your poem.

---

How would you live if you were born in an alternate universe?

P.S. - Come gather in the comments section of this post and give praise to the poets who shared their poems from last week’s writing prompt on Alternate Universes.