I believe you did not have a happy life.I believe you were cheated.I believe your best friends were loneliness and misery.I believe your busiest enemies were anger and depression.I believe joy was a game you could never play without stumbling.I believe comfort, though you craved it, was forever a stranger.I believe music had to be melancholy or not at all.I believe no trinket, no precious metal, shone so bright as your bitterness.I believe you lay down at last in your coffin none the wiser and unassuaged.Oh, cold and dreamless under the wild, amoral, reckless, peaceful flowers of the hillsides.

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About Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver was a 20th-century American poet. Mary Jane Oliver was an American poet who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 and the National Book Award in 1992. She found inspiration for her work in nature and had a lifelong habit of solitary walks in the wild. Read more on Wikipedia →

Themes

  • Sadness — Navigating grief, melancholy, and emotional depth

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