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Those days

Summer memories.
By Mary Oliver
Summer 2006 5.15.06

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When I think of her I think of the long summer days
     she lay in the sun, how she loved the sun, how we
           spread our blanket, and friends came, and

the dogs played, and then I would get restless and
     get up and go off to the woods
           and the fields, and the afternoon would

soften gradually and finally I would come
     home, through the long shadows, and into the house
           where she would be

my glorious welcoming, tan and hungry and ready to tell
     the hurtless gossips of the day and how I
           listened leisurely while I put

around the room flowers in jars of water—
     daisies, butter-and-eggs, and everlasting—
           until like our lives they trembled and shimmered
                everywhere.


Reprinted from Thirst, © 2006 by Mary Oliver, by permission of Beacon Press, www.beacon.org.

Correction 01.03.11: It has been brought to our attention that the poem as printed in our Summer 2006 issue was not the final version that appeared in Thirst. This online version now matches that found in the book. We regret the oversight.

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