The Bleeding-heart by Mary Oliver

I know a bleeding-heart plant that has thrived for sixty years if not more, and has never missed a spring without rising and spreading itself into a glossy bush, with many small red hearts dangling. Don’t you think that deserves a little thought?

The woman who planted it has been gone for a long time, and everyone who saw it in that time has also died or moved away and so, like so many stories, this one can’t get finished properly. Most things that are important, have you noticed, lack a certain neatness. More delicious, anyway, is to remember my grandmother’s pleasure when the dissolve of winter was over and the green knobs appeared and began to rise, and to create their many hearts.

One would say she was a simple woman, made happy by simple things. I think this was true. And more than once, in my long life, I have wished to be her.

This is a passage by Mary Oliver – Her books on the craft of poetry, A Poetry Handbook and Rules for the Dance, are used widely in writing programs. She is a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award Winning Poet.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY

Remember – Comfort comes from watching plants rise up out of the dirt each spring and from the sun’s rising every morning, and these rising rhythms chase away fears born during the still of the dark night; as a Mother’s love does.

“a Mother’s heart is a Garden of Love.”