Originally stanza 2 caught my eye and was going to be what I wrote about: “sometimes melancholy leaves me breathless.” Because lately that has been happening to me more often than not. But as I began to read stanzas 3-7 each one was like an electric jolt to the heart to shake myself out of this foggy malaise that I have been living in. Throughout the stanzas Oliver paints a picture of a life well lived. First by paying attention to life and not simply letting it pass you by, but by being astonished by it. Revel in it, let it soak into your every fiber so you have no choice but to sweat out and excrete such a palpable love of life; not for the sake of others noticing but for your own enjoyment. In stanza 5 then talks of love which the meaning of this stanza to me is too fresh and personal for me to talk about in any great detail, but know that I am deeply touched by Oliver’s description of the impact of love. Finally the last stanza touches upon death, how we know it ever waits. Yet in the face of it we have a choice to love life to its fullest.
So yes, so will most likely endure periods of your life where melancholy leaves you breathless. You can let that feeling consume you, or you can take it, turn it on its head, and forge it into an unabashed love of life in all its manifestations. We can love life, even in the melancholia.
Poem: “Sometimes” from Red Bird by Mary Oliver.
