My Mary Oliver Poem #3: "The Kingfisher"

The Kingfisher

 The kingfisher rises out of the black wave

like a blue flower, in his beak

he carries a silver leaf. I think this 

the prettiest world--so long as you don't mind

a little dying, how could there be a day in your whole life

that doesn't have its splash of happiness?

There are more fish than there are leaves

on a thousand trees, and anyway the kingfisher

wasn't born to think about it, or anything else.

When the wave snaps shut over his blue head, the water

remains water--hunger is the only story

he has ever heard in his life that he could believe.

I don't say he's right. Neither

do I say he's wrong. Religiously he swallows the silver leaf

with its broken red river, and with a rough and easy cry

I couldn't rouse out of my thoughtful body

if my life depended on it, he swings back

over the bright sea to do the same thing, to do it

(as I long to do something, anything) perfectly. 

- Mary Oliver

This poem resonated with me the first time that I read it. Not only does Oliver paint a mesmerizing picture of a kingfisher diving into the water and grabbing a small fish, but she comments on the simplicity and frailty of that life. She states that the kingfisher only knows hunger, and it only acts out of that drive, as it dives into the water perfectly over and over again. That is all the kingfisher knows to do. Yet in its repetitive actions, Oliver portrays its beauty. She depicts the beauty in the simplicity, in the one action of the kingfisher, but describing the scene in stunning detail. It's contrasted by her interjection of her own thoughts "to do it (as I long to do something, anything) perfectly." Her interjection resonated with me. I have long struggled with perfectionism. I have long battled the unrealistic goal to do everything perfectly while also struggling and acknowledging the reality of an exceedingly flawed self and world. How (sometimes) I long to have the life of the kingfisher, who's only need is hunger and who's only actions are motivated by that. How I long to see the beauty of the simplistic life. Maybe I will get there someday, but in an increasingly complex and dark world, the modest, simple life is hard to find. Maybe that's why Oliver ran to nature and why we do too. To escape the hustle and bustle of the world, to leave behind its complexities and hardships, to find solace and rest in the natural world that functions seemingly independent of us and a part of our day to day struggles. To observe the plants and the animals acting as they always do, instinctually, without the burdens we humans have created and laid upon ourselves. To watch a kingfisher dive into a wave for the sustenance of a fish and to enjoy the small moment, laying aside our worries, to watch the simple, other worldly scene, that happens before our eyes.