Desperately Seeking Beauty

And finding it on a walk and in two poems by Mary Oliver

Before we begin…

Would you like to hear me read Mary Oliver’s poem “Blackberries?” Just click “play” above and you will. If you’d like to read along, just scroll down. It was one of the two poems that gave me some relief I badly needed this week. Think about the week that is ending today. What will you remember? What gave you the most peace? What gave you a reason to smile? It’s been a long, hot, strange summer and this week I’m looking for beauty. How about you?

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A Walk and Two Poems by Mary Oliver

“If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it?” - Mary Oliver, from “Singapore” in The House of Light

I went for a walk this morning, by myself. I didn’t walk far but I went to the ocean and breathed in, let the sound of the waves break over me for a while. I stood there and took a breath. Then another. I forgot my phone so there are no photos of this walk, nothing to prove I took it except the looseness that returned to my back, the easing of the tightness in my chest that was clinching tighter with every hot sticky moment over the past two weeks.

This was from another walk, another day but it is still beautiful.

I know the reasons for my anxiety and if I were to list them, they would probably look a lot like your own list. Suffice to say we’ve had a summer full of reminders that life comes with sharp edges and long tests of endurance for people we love. We’ve been reminded again and again that there is nothing fair about the distribution of pain, illness, or luck. 

Perhaps it is not surprising that this week my novel-in-progress turned on me. I saw what I wanted to do and could not, for the life of me, do it. I was distracted, tired, and wanted to lash out at anyone or anything that crossed my path. I needed to step away. I went in search of beauty. 

The one reliable thing in life is that beauty, like shit, happens. Every day. It happens outside, in nature. It happens in the pages of a book or a poem. Sometimes, though, I have to be hit over the head and made to look. This week, the mallet hitting my head was on my Kindle. 

Because I am cheap, I bought the kind of Kindle that pushes book ads at me every time I wake it up. I fired it up yesterday after months of neglect and found one recommendation after another for a book by Mary Oliver. After the 7th or 8th time, I decided to take the hint and opened my copy of Devotions, the collection of Oliver’s work published in 2016. I found two poems which woke the memories of New Hampshire summers for me. I read them with an ache of recognition and longing but also, gratitude that came along and took me out of my own head. They were beautiful and I wanted to share them with you because that is the best I can offer this week. 

First, “The Loon on Oak Head Pond.” With it, I offer this gorgeous shot of a parent loon and chick from Pleasant Lake in New Hampshire taken by Jon Waage co author of a summer newsletter out of New London, NH where they capture life and loss on a single lake in photographs that take the breath away. You can find the archive here and also sign up to receive updates once a month during the summer.

Photo by Jon Waage of the Pleasant Lake Protective Association.

The Loon on Oak Head Pond

cries for three days, in the gray mist,
cries for the north it hopes it can find.
plunges, and comes up with a slapping pickerel,
blinks its red eye.
cries again.
you come every afternoon, and wait to hear it.

you sit a long time, quiet, under the thick pines, in the silence that follows.
as though it were your own twilight,
as though it were your own vanishing song.
—Mary Oliver

And now, “Blackberries,” which reminded me of hot August days when my mother would lead my siblings and me up into the woods to clearings full of blueberries and make us stay until we filled our designated buckets. We didn’t know how lucky we were.

Blackberries

Photo by Samuel Gartmann on Unsplash

I come down
Come down the blacktop road from Red Rock.
A hot day.

Off the road in the hacked tangles
blackberries big as thumbs hang shining
in the shade. And a creek nearby: a dark
spit through wet stones. And a pool

like a stonesink if you know
where to climb for it among
the hillside ferns, where the thrush
naps in her nest of sticks and loam. I

come down from the Red Rock, lips streaked
black, fingers purple, throat cool, shirt
full of fernfingers, head full of windy
whistling. It takes all day.

— Mary Oliver

Two Things I am excited about in August 

• Rabih Alameddine new book and interview. I have read every one of Alemeddine’s books since I discovered the one that I still consider one of the best novels I have ever read: An Unnecessary Woman. I will be writing about this book and Alameddine when I finish reading his latest, The Long End of the Telescope but you can learn more about him here. You can also join me in listening to him talk about this book and other things when he is interviewed by the California Book Club at Alta on August 18 at 5 p.m. Pacific time (8 p.m. Eastern). It’s free. To register, click Here

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• Finishing Isaac Fitzgerald’s new memoir: Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional. I started reading yesterday and found it hard to put down in order to write today. I’m just so curious about this man. I first came across him when he launched his newsletter Walk It Off ,  a terrifically conceived project that combines two passions that I happen to share: walking and writing. As he walks, he talks with writers we become curious about if we haven’t already met them through their work. He comes from New England, another thing we share. And, after his birth which upended the lives of his parents and many others, he grew up in Massachusetts and New Hampshire in towns that I recognize like my own. 

A Fun Resource for Readers

A book giveaway that is full of surprises. Cassie over at Reading Under the Radar is offering readers a chance to win a box full of ARC’s (advance review copies) of books that have been sent to her for review. To enter the drawing, hop over to Reading Under the Radar and comment on her August posts. Here are the details from Cassie herself: 

End-of-Summer Giveaway! Through the month of August, each time you comment on a post, you get an entry into the massive end-of-summer giveaway! I currently have 15 brand-new ARCs and finished copies of 2022 releases, and adding more every week! These will likely be split up into two boxes for two winners, and I’m leaving it a mystery so you will be surprised! They include all genres, from fiction to nonfiction to mystery, thriller, romance, literary fiction, and more.

To enter:

• Must be US resident or have US mailing address

• Must be 13+ years

• Comment on any August recommendation or post to earn an entry. The monthly August what’s on my stack is included!

• You can earn multiple entries by leaving comments on as many August recommendations as you want!

• Entries accepted through August 31.

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Welcome, New Subscribers!

Welcome to each and every new person who has joined us. It’s thrilling to to find so many new folks on board each day. If you would like to check out past issues, here’s a quick link to the archives. Be sure to check out our Resources for Readers and Writers too. And help us spread the word by sharing Spark with your friends. Oh, you can find most of the books discussed here on the Spark Community Recommendations Page of bookshop.org where each sale supports local bookstores and generates a commission that I receive.

That’s it for this week. Let me know you are and what you’re reading. If there’s an idea, book, or question you’d like to see in an upcoming issue of Spark, let us know! Use the comment button below or just hit reply to this email and send your message directly. 

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Ciao for now.

Gratefully,

Betsy

P.S. And now, your moment of Zen… Summer Rain

Video comes from Jennifer Redmond Silva. Here’s your sound track from Johnny Rivers.

Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”

What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.

Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone  -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed. 

I can’t wait to see what you send!