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The Leaf and the Cloud: A Poem
An astonishing book-length poem in seven parts from the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
With piercing clarity and craftsmanship, Mary Oliver has fashioned an unforgettable poem of questioning and discovery, about what is observable and what is not, about what passes and what persists.
"It's hard to imagine anyone putting down Oliver's book-length poem and not sighing with satisfaction, so sensible is every word and thought." -- Virginia Quarterly Review
With piercing clarity and craftsmanship, Mary Oliver has fashioned an unforgettable poem of questioning and discovery, about what is observable and what is not, about what passes and what persists.
"It's hard to imagine anyone putting down Oliver's book-length poem and not sighing with satisfaction, so sensible is every word and thought." -- Virginia Quarterly Review
60 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
11 people are currently reading
939 people want to read
About the author
Mary Oliver
106 books8,578 followersMary Jane Oliver was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her work is inspired by nature, rather than the human world, stemming from her lifelong passion for solitary walks in the wild.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 126 reviews
December 30, 2019
bought this almost solely for the name. but it was mary oliver too, and unsurprisingly, beautiful.
“Would it be better to sit in silence?
To think everything, to feel everything, to say nothing?”
“And I will sing for the . . . And the mystery of the number 3.”
“I am a woman sixty years old, and glory is my work.”
“Would it be better to sit in silence?
To think everything, to feel everything, to say nothing?”
“And I will sing for the . . . And the mystery of the number 3.”
“I am a woman sixty years old, and glory is my work.”
April 15, 2014
53 pages . . . one poem, with many parts, lines that had meaning to me (and may have more or different meaning to me when I read them again later).
I enjoyed the spiritual connections with nature in the poem and I especially like the line, "A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauties of this world . . ."
I enjoyed the spiritual connections with nature in the poem and I especially like the line, "A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauties of this world . . ."
April 20, 2020
reading this book was a spiritual experience!
so i will write my poem, but i will leave room for the world / i will write my poem tenderly and simply, but / i will leave room for the wind combing the grass / for the feather falling out of the grouse's fan-tail / and fluttering down, like a song.
so i will write my poem, but i will leave room for the world / i will write my poem tenderly and simply, but / i will leave room for the wind combing the grass / for the feather falling out of the grouse's fan-tail / and fluttering down, like a song.
Want to read
June 16, 20198.
The poem is not the world.
It isn't even the first page of the world.
But the poem wants to flower, like a flower.
It knows that much.
It wants to open itself,
like the door of a little temple,
so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed,
and less yourself than part of everything.
June 16, 19
The poem is not the world.
It isn't even the first page of the world.
But the poem wants to flower, like a flower.
It knows that much.
It wants to open itself,
like the door of a little temple,
so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed,
and less yourself than part of everything.
June 16, 19
April 21, 2025
Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets & this is one of my favorite spring time collections by her. It was delightful! I finished it on a beautiful Easter afternoon.
August 30, 2021
This is my favorite poet, and I can re-read her books hundreds of times and still have my breath taken away, and find new things in her words. If you have never read a Mary Oliver poem, you Must! My favorites are "Wild Geese" and "The Journey" (neither in this book). This is billed as a continuous poem; the theme may be, but there are sections that break it up.
Gravel (10) "The Leaf and the Cloud, 2000
This the poem of goodbye.
And this is the poem of don’t know.
My hands touch the lilies
then withdraw;
my hands touch the blue iris
then withdraw;
and I say, not easily but carefully—
the words round in the mouth, crisp on the tongue—
dirt, mud, stars, water— I know you as if you were myself.
How could I be afraid?
Gravel (10) "The Leaf and the Cloud, 2000
This the poem of goodbye.
And this is the poem of don’t know.
My hands touch the lilies
then withdraw;
my hands touch the blue iris
then withdraw;
and I say, not easily but carefully—
the words round in the mouth, crisp on the tongue—
dirt, mud, stars, water— I know you as if you were myself.
How could I be afraid?
October 15, 2012
The year begins to wind down and when the leaves fall in basketsfull I reach for Mary Oliver again. This is the most spiritual of writing, with the sense of wonder in the Great Mystery that lifts me above myself. This will be my 8th reading of this marvelous book. Thank you, Mary Oliver!
August 16, 2017
cathartic crying and an impulse to recite/memorize, which hasn't happened in years
November 21, 2024
I loved this book so much. I was surprised to see an epigraph/excerpt from John Ruskin's nineteenth-century classic Modern Painters, and yet I love how Oliver takes the idea of the leaf and the cloud from there and makes it so much more beautiful. Also: there is something comforting about the way she encounters and describes the natural world.
Not surprisingly, I especially resonated with the first section, Flare, and the description of the mother and father. When she says: "But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry," I felt seen. Recognized. And I thought: yes, stop carrying it. Stop carrying them!
I loved it so much that I bought a copy when I went to A Room of One's Own with Kate on Sunday! I need to reread it.
Not surprisingly, I especially resonated with the first section, Flare, and the description of the mother and father. When she says: "But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry," I felt seen. Recognized. And I thought: yes, stop carrying it. Stop carrying them!
I loved it so much that I bought a copy when I went to A Room of One's Own with Kate on Sunday! I need to reread it.
January 9, 2022
3.5 stars.
This collection is definitely a bit different than most of Mary Oliver's works I have read so far. She still asks a lot of great questions and shares beautiful lessons from nature. I'd still recommend this one, especially to people wanting to read something that will spur them on to simplifying their life some.
This collection is definitely a bit different than most of Mary Oliver's works I have read so far. She still asks a lot of great questions and shares beautiful lessons from nature. I'd still recommend this one, especially to people wanting to read something that will spur them on to simplifying their life some.
April 12, 2020
One poem in 7 parts interlacing nature and the human condition that Mary Oliver does so well.
Flare
I will not mention them now,
I will not mention them again.
It is not lack of love
Nor lack of sorrow.
But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry.
I give them - one,two,three,four- the kiss of courtesy,
Of sweet thanks,
Of anger, of good luck in the deep earth.
May they sleep well. May they soften.
But I will not give them the kiss of complicity.
I will not give them the responsibility for my life...
Flare
I will not mention them now,
I will not mention them again.
It is not lack of love
Nor lack of sorrow.
But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry.
I give them - one,two,three,four- the kiss of courtesy,
Of sweet thanks,
Of anger, of good luck in the deep earth.
May they sleep well. May they soften.
But I will not give them the kiss of complicity.
I will not give them the responsibility for my life...
Read
March 30, 2024reminds me of my wife🌲
July 25, 2023
Gorgeous prose that feels spiritual as Oliver contemplates the natural world and her place in it. Just lovely.
January 17, 2022
I don't know what I expected from The Leaf and the Cloud... Before reading The Leaf and the Cloud, the only other poetry collection I had read by Mary Oliver is
American Primitive
... Dedicated to James Wright,
American Primitive
follows in the poet's example of nature-themed poetry. Indeed, the collection is preoccupied with nature, as the title (
American Primitive
) suggests. If I expected the same from The Leaf and the Cloud is is because of the expectations set by
American Primitive
, and by the book's title (The Leaf and the Cloud).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to natural imagery or nature-themed poems. I haven't read any of James Wright's poems, but I liked American Primitive . I liked it enough to want to read more of Oliver's poetry. But I couldn't have expected how much I would like The Leaf and the Cloud.
A book-length poem in seven parts, The Leaf and the Cloud takes the reader in so many directions. Full of questioning and longing, clarity and revelation. Indeed, the poem is described by the publisher as being about "questioning and discovery, about what is observable and what is not, about what passes and what persists". But this only begins to describe The Leaf and the Cloud. The poem is all of this and more...
In an interview, the poet Billy Collins suggested that the ending of a poem is "something that didn’t exist before, that the poem brings, calls into existence, through a series of steps..." In Oliver's The Leaf and the Cloud the reader encounters precisely what Collins described: the steps by which the poet reaches the end of the poem. Throughout the poem, Oliver stops to consider what the poem (still in process) may be. As if the ending of the poem were a physical object. Something on the distant horizon, the details of which she can't yet make out. Something she is moving toward, but hasn't yet reached...
I was somewhat irked by the religious connotations of Oliver's "blessings". But it is an improvement upon Gospel of Matthew's blessings...
Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to natural imagery or nature-themed poems. I haven't read any of James Wright's poems, but I liked American Primitive . I liked it enough to want to read more of Oliver's poetry. But I couldn't have expected how much I would like The Leaf and the Cloud.
A book-length poem in seven parts, The Leaf and the Cloud takes the reader in so many directions. Full of questioning and longing, clarity and revelation. Indeed, the poem is described by the publisher as being about "questioning and discovery, about what is observable and what is not, about what passes and what persists". But this only begins to describe The Leaf and the Cloud. The poem is all of this and more...
I am touching a few leaves.
I am noticing the way the yellow butterflies
move together, in a twinkling cloud, over the field.
And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening
is the real work.
Maybe the world, without us,
is the real poem.
- From the Book of Time, 1 (pg. 17)
The sweet-faced cat,
the good goat,
the golden feet of the hen -
the sealed jug of her egg -
the black mole's long-knucked hands,
the spears of the grass,
the sun on everyone's back, yours and mine.
Also the poem on the page,
also the painting on the white wall;
also the instruments and the arms holding them
and the voices issuing from them.
The turnip, the cabbage, the crook-necked squash;
the three blue bowls;
the fork and the knife.
The sailboat,
the dragger swaying above its heavy nets,
the pink dory crossing the bay with two boys and a dog.
I'm never sure
which part of this dream is me
and which part is the rest of the world.
Therefore.
- Riprap, 3 (pg. 26 - 27)
what does it mean, that the world is beautiful -
what does it mean?
The child asks this,
and the determined, laboring adult asks this -
both the carpenter and the scholar ask this,
and the fisherman and the teacher;
both the rich and the poor ask this
(maybe the poor more than the rich)
and the old and the very old, not yet having figured it out, ask this
desperately
standing beside the golden-coated field rock,
or the tumbling water,
or under the stars -
what does it mean?
what does it mean?
- Gravel, 6 (pg. 42-43)
In an interview, the poet Billy Collins suggested that the ending of a poem is "something that didn’t exist before, that the poem brings, calls into existence, through a series of steps..." In Oliver's The Leaf and the Cloud the reader encounters precisely what Collins described: the steps by which the poet reaches the end of the poem. Throughout the poem, Oliver stops to consider what the poem (still in process) may be. As if the ending of the poem were a physical object. Something on the distant horizon, the details of which she can't yet make out. Something she is moving toward, but hasn't yet reached...
The poem is not the world.
It isn't even the first page of the world.
But the poem wants to flower, like a flower.
It knows that much.
It wants to open itself,
like the door of a little temple,
so that you might sleep inside and be cooled and refreshed,
and less yourself than part of everything.
- Flare, 8 (pg. 5)
So I will write my poem, but I will leave room for the world.
I will write my poem tenderly and simply, but
I will leave room for the wind coming the grass,
for the feather falling out of the grouse's fan-tail,
and fluttering down, like a song.
- Work, 7 (pg. 14)
O what is beauty
that I should be up at
four A.M. trying to arrange this
thick song?
What is beauty that I should
bow down in the fields of the world, as though
someone, somewhere
made it?
O, what is beauty
that I feel it to be so hot-blooded and suggestive,
so filled with imperative
beneath the ease of its changes,
between the leaves and the clouds of its thousand
and again a thousand opportunities.
- Riprap, 2 (pg. 26)
I was somewhat irked by the religious connotations of Oliver's "blessings". But it is an improvement upon Gospel of Matthew's blessings...
Blessed [are] the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed [are] they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed [are] the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed [are] they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed [are] the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed [are] the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed [are] the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed [are] they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye, when [men] shall revile you, and persecute [you], and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
- Matthew 5:3-11 (King James Version)
Bless the fingers,
for they are as darting as fire.
Bless the little hairs of the body,
for they are softer than grass.
Bless the hips
for they are cunning beyond all other machinery.
Bless the mouth
for it is the describer.
Bless the tongue
for it is the maker of words.
Bless the eyes
for they are the gifts of the angel,
for they tell the truth.
Bless the shoulders
for they are a strength and a shelter.
Bless the thumb
for when working it has godly grip.
Bless the feet
for their knuckles and their modesty.
Bless the spine
for it is the whole story.
- Rhapsody, 5 (pg. 35-36)
November 16, 2014
The Leaf and the Cloud is a long poem divided up into sections and verses. It is a gorgeous collection of observations of the natural world, questions about the world unseen, and recognition of the interconnectedness of all beings. This is a collection to own for sure; it begs to be read and reread, the pages need to be dog eared and referred to whenever you need to be uplifted, or to be validated in your questioning, or simply to feel a renewed connection with life.
December 29, 2021
Didn’t think I could love Mary Oliver any more than I already did but here I am left speechless once more. She has a way of connecting one’s soul to every single facet of this life and I am grateful for her for this.
August 1, 2009
I reread parts of this book every so often. It's the book to read excerpts from when my ashes are scattered. Transportive.
September 12, 2016
loved it - reminds me of Verlyn Klinkenborg, but in poetry. Such an exultant and patient love of the natural world. I've never read anything of hers before and I am in love
October 15, 2018
This woman is a genius. She is the gold standard of poets, and easily moves me to tears.
March 1, 2025
I’m never sure
which part of this dream is me
and which part is the rest of the world.
/Therefore./
which part of this dream is me
and which part is the rest of the world.
/Therefore./
July 24, 2023
I adore Mary Oliver. I worship everything I’ve read that she’s written - as she puts it in this volume, she is “a woman sixty years old, and glory is [her] work.” She validates all my desires to condition the joys of my life on the experience of the bees and the meadows and the flowers. Favourite excerpts below to give you a sense of her writing.
When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider
the orderliness of the world. Notice
something you have never noticed before…
Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no.
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also,
like the diligent leaves.
A life time isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life.
Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.
In the glare of your mind, be modest.
And behold to what is tactile, and thrilling.
Live with the beetle, and the wind.
This is the dark bread of the poem.
This is the dark and nourishing bread of the poem.
***
I am touching a few leaves.
I am noticing the way the yellow butterflies
move together, in a twinkling cloud, over the field.
And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening
is the real work.
Maybe the world, without us,
is the real poem.
***
Because there is no substitute for vigorous and exact
description, I would like to say how
your eyes, at twilight, reflect, at the same
time, the beauty of the world, and its crimes.
When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider
the orderliness of the world. Notice
something you have never noticed before…
Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no.
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also,
like the diligent leaves.
A life time isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life.
Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.
In the glare of your mind, be modest.
And behold to what is tactile, and thrilling.
Live with the beetle, and the wind.
This is the dark bread of the poem.
This is the dark and nourishing bread of the poem.
***
I am touching a few leaves.
I am noticing the way the yellow butterflies
move together, in a twinkling cloud, over the field.
And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening
is the real work.
Maybe the world, without us,
is the real poem.
***
Because there is no substitute for vigorous and exact
description, I would like to say how
your eyes, at twilight, reflect, at the same
time, the beauty of the world, and its crimes.
June 25, 2021
Mary Oliver really gave us what she needed to give with this book-long poem tbh... This poem was really beautiful and reads like a memoir in many ways, beginning from her observations in nature to her experiences in childhood to her poignant meditations on death. One of Oliver's most riveting writing techniques is always threading her metaphors of nature into her reflections of how she and her loved ones are in relation with the world around them. She notes "We are slow, and choosy. This is the world." Leading us further into her rumination on love, Oliver notes that "eternity is not later, or in any unfindable place" but rather can be found in "half opened cups of petals between [our] hands" or in "the salt of the stars." As I read more, the more I resonated with Oliver's joyous, soaring odes to love and nature, like when she said "if you are in the garden, I will dress myself into leaves... But if you are sad, I will not dress myself in desolation./ I will present myself with all the laughters I can muster." Her lightheartedness and easygoing pace was perfect for reading in short intervals as she observes the world around her with curiosity and calmness, showing us how our world is always threaded with love. Some of my favorite parts of this poem were "From the Book of Time," "Rhapsody," "Gravel," and "Evening Star" (which is like more than half the book lmao)
July 8, 2024
Oliver’s keen observations of nature encourage us to pay attention and take a closer look at the miracles big and small happening all around us.
“Have I admired sufficiently the little hurricane
of the hummingbird?”
—from “The Book of Time (5), p. 21
“Even now
I remember something
the way a flower
in a jar of water
remembers its life
in the perfect garden”
—from “The Book of Time (6), pp. 22-23
“It is our nature not only to see
that the world is beautiful
but to stand in the dark, under the stars,
or at noon, in the rainfall of light,
frenzied,
wringing our hands,
half-mad, saying over and over:
what does it mean, that the world is beautiful—
what does it mean?”
—from “Gravel (6),” p. 42
“Think of me
when you see the evening star.
Think of me when you see the wren
the flowing root of the creek beneath him,
dark silver and cold
Remember me I am the one who told you
he sings for happiness.
I am the one who told you
that the grass is also alive, and listening”
—from “Evening Star,” p. 52
Favorite Poems:
“The Book of Time”
“Have I admired sufficiently the little hurricane
of the hummingbird?”
—from “The Book of Time (5), p. 21
“Even now
I remember something
the way a flower
in a jar of water
remembers its life
in the perfect garden”
—from “The Book of Time (6), pp. 22-23
“It is our nature not only to see
that the world is beautiful
but to stand in the dark, under the stars,
or at noon, in the rainfall of light,
frenzied,
wringing our hands,
half-mad, saying over and over:
what does it mean, that the world is beautiful—
what does it mean?”
—from “Gravel (6),” p. 42
“Think of me
when you see the evening star.
Think of me when you see the wren
the flowing root of the creek beneath him,
dark silver and cold
Remember me I am the one who told you
he sings for happiness.
I am the one who told you
that the grass is also alive, and listening”
—from “Evening Star,” p. 52
Favorite Poems:
“The Book of Time”
April 11, 2023
I've always loved Mary Oliver's poetry and sometimes I have to take down old favorites and reread them. Reading this now (in my "older" years) was a game changer. I remember liking this seven-part, book length poem 20 some years ago but I don't think I recognized all of the heavier themes within it. As always, Oliver writes about nature and somehow makes her musings feel religious or spiritual. She uses her intense attention to details of the natural world to create beautiful images and tie them to mortality, grief and wonder. There are a few moments that feel a little overly sentimental but overall this was a lovely read.
"A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world."
INDEED!
"A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world."
INDEED!
July 29, 2022
Might just be one of my favs from MO. Of course, they all are.
“Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no.
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also,
like the diligent leaves.
A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life.
Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.
In the glare of your mind, be modest.
And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling.
Live with the beetle, and the wind.
This is the dark bread of the poem.
This is the dark and nourishing bread of the poem.”
“Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no.
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also,
like the diligent leaves.
A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life.
Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.
In the glare of your mind, be modest.
And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling.
Live with the beetle, and the wind.
This is the dark bread of the poem.
This is the dark and nourishing bread of the poem.”
January 19, 2019
This book is lovely. Oliver's poetry is attuned to nature and the rhythms of the seasons; she is full of wonder, and that's the point for her--wonder in the rose, in the butterfly, in the whale, in the corn. Her thesis is the same as Merleau-Ponty's (and incidentally, Dirk Gently's)--everything is connected; everything is participant. She meditates in these poems on what it is to live in the world and what it means to leave it. Now that she has left this world, it is comforting to read that all she saw beyond that rent in the veil is light, light, light.
April 20, 2019
"I rose this morning early as usual, and went to my desk
But it’s spring,
and the thrush is in the woods,
somewhere in the twirled branches, and he is singing.
And so, now, I am standing by the open door.
And now I am stepping down onto the grass.
I am touching a few leaves.
I am noticing the way the yellow butterflies
move together, in a twinkling cloud, over the field.
And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening
is the real work.
Maybe the world, without us,
is the real poem...."
--from "From The Book of Time" by Mary Oliver
But it’s spring,
and the thrush is in the woods,
somewhere in the twirled branches, and he is singing.
And so, now, I am standing by the open door.
And now I am stepping down onto the grass.
I am touching a few leaves.
I am noticing the way the yellow butterflies
move together, in a twinkling cloud, over the field.
And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening
is the real work.
Maybe the world, without us,
is the real poem...."
--from "From The Book of Time" by Mary Oliver
January 5, 2021
Mary Oliver is one of my favorite poets. I read this in the tub at a hotel room and sobbed into the bathwater at how sweet, honest, and powerful her poetry is. Here is my favorite one from this collection:
"The poem is not the world.
It isn't even the first page of the world.
But the poem wants to flower, like a flower.
It knows that much.
It wants to open itself,
like the door of a little temple,
so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed,
and less yourself than part of everything."
"The poem is not the world.
It isn't even the first page of the world.
But the poem wants to flower, like a flower.
It knows that much.
It wants to open itself,
like the door of a little temple,
so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed,
and less yourself than part of everything."
November 20, 2022
A sonorous ode to what the world is: the leaf, the cloud, the stone, the river: perfect in themselves, existing apart from humanity—and yet so bound up in our notions of the self, beauty, value, and the meaning of life. Mary Oliver meditates on the mundane, sublime, and beastly in nature, describing and redescrbiing how the boundaries of artificial and natural are more blurry and shifting than simple semantics lets on. A beautiful work of poetry for both its small moments and the breadth of its world-spanning vision.
June 10, 2024
I seldom read poetry without an assignment. I read this to fulfill a poetry category in a challenge. Mary Oliver has won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry, so I selected a book that is one poem in 7 parts to experience her work. The subject is the natural world, how it flows, observing, discovering, watching it change, just experiencing its connections. There is peace in this little book as well as a questioning of the things around us and how she interacts with what she sees and feels. Satisfying.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 126 reviews