And so, I think, they always were:
Like their own portrait, years ago,
They paced the blue and windy fields,
Aged in the polished rooms below.

For name by name I find no sign
Of hero in this distant life,
But only men as calm as snow
Who took some faithful girl as wife,

Who labored while the drought, the flood
Crisscrossed the fickle summer air,
Who built great barns and propped their lives
Upon a slow heart-breaking care.

Who do I love them as I do,
Who dared no glory, won no fame?
In a harsh land that lies subdued,
They are the good boughs of my name.

If music sailed their dreams at all,
They were not heroes, and slept on;
As one by one they left the small
Accomplished, till the great was done.

~ Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is an American Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning poet, and was once described by the New York Times as, “far and away, this country's [America's] best-selling poet”.   She is best known for the prevalent theme of nature in her poems and has been compared to Emily Dickinson due to her love of solitude. 

Interestingly, Mary grew up admiring the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, who we’ve also featured in our “A Poem a Day” posts.  She visited the author’s home in New York when she was just 17 and befriended Edna’s sister, Norma.  Edna’s house became like a second home to Mary and she helped Norma organize the late poet’s works.

Mary is famous for wanting to keep her privacy.  But in a rare interview, she described her method of reflecting while walking:  “When things are going well, you know, the walk does not get rapid or get anywhere: I finally just stop, and write. That’s a successful walk!”
Once, when Mary found herself walking in the woods without a pen to write down her ideas, she went back and hid pencils in the trees in that area so that she wouldn’t be stuck in the same predicament a second time. 

To read one of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poems, click here.