Privileged to spend time where once she lived.
Provincetown’s harbor,
fishing boats at rest in midafternoon sun.
Low tide walks
beneath brightly blue cloudless sky,
heads down, staring at sidling hermit crabs.
Dining in Mews Restaurant’s downstairs room,
her favorite place, ours too.
Full length windows frame tall wispy grasses
rooted in sandy beach, its rippled ridges
solidified by swirling waves.
We spend two weeks every September
in this place we cherish,
this place she called home.
We walk its narrow lanes,
marvel at Captain Stormy’s dahlia garden,
step aside for bicycles’ jingling bells.
And I journal, humbled to know
this was where Mary Oliver found delight.
Written for dVerse, the virtual pub for poets around the globe. Today Dora asks us to be inspired by a poet or author who has died. Photos taken during our past twenty-five years of spending two-weeks annually in Provincetown. Yes, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet Mary Oliver lived in Provincetown for many years. Many of her poems were about nature as she viewed it on Cape Cod.
Coming Home
by Mary Oliver
When we are driving in the dark,
on the long road to Provincetown,
when we are weary,
when the buildings and the scrub pines lose their familiar look,
I imagine us rising from the speeding car.
I imagine us seeing everything from another place–
the top of one of the pale dunes, or the deep and nameless
fields of the sea.
And what we see is a world that cannot cherish us,
but which we cherish.
And what we see is our life moving like that
along the dark edges of everything,
headlights sweeping the blackness,
believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.
Looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.
lillian the home poet 
Oh I love Mary Oliver, and you are indeed lucky to be able to walk where she walked, dine in her favorite restaurant. I am currently reading devotions and have a daily indulgence in her work. I did think of writing about Mary Oliver too but decided to go with Judith Wright an Australian poet whom like Oliver was a poet of nature. Thank you for this lovely tribute.
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So glad you enjoyed. I was thrilled to learn that Mary Oliver lived many many years in Provincetown! It is indeed a beautiful place.
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Walking in Mary Oliver’s footsteps through your words, through your eyes, we walk with you in affection and honor. Beautifully done, Lillian. Thank you for sharing Oliver’s poem as well. I’m not as familiar with her amazing work as I ought to be.
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What a lovely comment. Thank you, Dora.
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Very nicely done, and a wonderful response to Mary Oliver’s poem. How great you could not just imagine, but actually be there!
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As did she all the years she lived there, we love Provincetown.
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Wonderful!
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I love Mary Oliver’s poem and your response to hers. The views are so pretty. Love the place and feeling of ‘home’.
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We always treasure our two weeks in Provincetown.
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this was lovely! thanks so much for sharing mary oliver’s piece in full, as well as your own. i’m a huge mary oliver fan! you did her proud! 🙂
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What a lovely reply to read. Thanks you!
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I love how you have the connection with Mary in such a great place. Walking in her footsteps guided by her poems must be great.
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Love her poetry….love Provincetown – as did she.
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She made what she found. How lovely to sit with her here.
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Glad you enjoyed.
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What a lovely way to share Mary Oliver’s world, Lill, and how lucky you were to walk in her footsteps. I always enjoy seeing your photos and reading about your travels. I love the thought of ‘fishing boats at rest in midafternoon sun’, the full length windows framing ‘tall wispy grasses rooted in sandy beach’ and a dahlia garden.
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Thank you Kim. She is indeed a wonderful poet….so thoughtful as she writes about nature’s beauty, complexity, and simplicity. And Ptown is a very special place.
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Yours, is a most enticing poem. You took us on your journey to that place of beauty and honour
Much🖤love
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How wonderful to walk those same paths! Thank. you for sharing, and for the splendid photos.
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