Sheer Delight and Gratitude: Mary Oliver’s Invitation

“Sheer Delight and Gratitude”

Invitation by Mary Oliver

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air

as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude—
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,

do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

When I opened my art gallery in 2021, the effects of covid still lingering and the world as uncertain as ever, one of my don’t-crawl-into-a-ball-of-total-despair practices was this: get a blanket, a coffee, and read this poem on repeat until my nerves were soothed and I felt like making art was not only possible but vital again. That’s when goldfinches started appearing in my work. I couldn’t get enough of their yellow. In fact, I’d just moved into my new house which, despite weird looks from our family and friends, my husband and I decided would be painted yellow.

People ask me what the words are in this piece often because A: of course they want to know, and B: I’ve never been known, not once, for my legible handwriting. They are the part of the poem that starts “as they strive” and ends “in the broken world”.  The painting was my attempt to linger– in the raw materials I was using, the sound the palette knife makes on the canvas, and the idea that sheer delight and gratitude can be present to me even when I can’t open my phone for fear some new catastrophe has struck.

St. Mary Oliver, pray for us.