In Blackwater Woods, Mary Oliver

To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

Mary Oliver, In Blackwater Woods

"To live in this world // you must be able / to do three things: / to love what is mortal; / to hold it // against your bones knowing / your own life depends on it; / and, when the time comes to let it go, / to let it go."

Read it here | Reblog for a larger sample size!

Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light,

🌿 Mary Oliver, In Blackwater Woods

.

In Blackwater Woods

Mary Oliver

Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars

of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment,

the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders

of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is

nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned

in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side

is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world

you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it

against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

my fave mary oliver poems🫶🫶

REGULARLY SCHEDULED FOOTBALL CONTENT

It’s Saturday and there’s still the tiniest little bit of regular season college football left for 2022!

I can’t remember if I’ve posted this before but it’s the poem I read at my mom’s funeral service back in February. I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately since her birthday was at the end of November and the holidays are coming up and it’s depressing as shit inside and outside the house.

“In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars

of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment,

the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders

of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is

nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned

in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side

is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world

you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it

against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

forever sad we'll never get to see beatrice's face in those moments right after the kiss. i'm talking right before they break apart and then immediately after while they're still resting their foreheads together. like was she crying too? did she open her eyes first? did she look peaceful or devastated?

i can never escape from the fact that beatrice has just, in the same breath, found faith in the mouth of a girl and watched that same holy thing slip through her hands.

she really is both orpheus and eurydice in that moment. she is being asked - kissed into compliance, implored with every sacred inch of this girl she loves - to walk out of hell and she is the ghost left on the threshold of death, watching her lover erupt into light.

there’s so much grace in ava in that moment, so much bravey because i think if i were going to my death and there was a hand i could hold on the way to it… i’d cling to that.

but ava is still so intent on not being a burden to anyone. it breaks my heart, watching her melt into light and how her face goes from this saintlike thing, full of soft longing, to a mask of bravery. a funeral dirge for a heartbeat.

she’s so brave and you can see in that shot; the cross of light on her shoulders. you see beatrice standing there and i think she knows then that her hands are not overfull with ava; they are just empty without her.

she’s being asked to become orpheus. and no, ava won’t be behind her - trapped at the gates in the mouth of the monster, but she wants her to turn, and walk, and let her go. we know how well beatrice has rehearsed for this, but from the moment she clings to the bars in the museum, watching ava drop like a star, we know that it doesn’t matter how well she understands the steps to this dance of leaving; she wants ava to teach her something new.

i talk all the time about beatrice and touch but i think another aspect of her learning to reach out is the fact that she also learns how to not let go.

because i think beatrice has been let go very often in her life. and she’s had to let go of others in return. and then she encounters something that she can’t surrender. a blow she cannot turn the other cheek to accept.

i’m always captivated by how she holds ava when they find out that they’ve lost mary - it’s the first hint we get that maybe this story is about refusing to let go. it’s about the hunger (ava cramming croissants into her mouth, beatrice wanting her hands to be filled, her water to wine) and beatrice learning to fight not for a cause, which is easy, but for herself. and she holds ava and then we DO see her face and it’s not yet resolve but it is the first sign that she won’t let ava go, the “you are my best friend, and i cannot watch you die.”

and ava tries to say “okay then, don’t look.” she offers beatrice the chance to walk out of hell, to never look back, but of couse she does. that’s just how the story goes.

Honestly, the funniest part of rdr2 for me is everyone in the game talking about Blackwater this Blackwater that and how terrible everything was there-

Then you get to this rinky dink tiny ass town as John and you're like, THIS is Blackwater???

when i say my hail marys i’m evoking the 1984 pulitzer prize winning poet mary oliver

The fires and the black river of loss / The cycling and turning of fate and sorrow

Detail images below the cut:

my thing about poetry is that i don't think it's about finding new things to talk about. if you're only focused on finding new things to talk about then you're never going to get at anything with real deep truth to it because most things that real deep truth is in we've been talking about for millennia and whatever you scrounge up for the sake of novelty is only going to be more and more shallow. what i think poetry is really about is finding new connections. new ways to look at things. we talk about loss and how it hurts and we talk about the tragedy of forest fires but have you considered that loss is like a forest fire... have you considered that maybe the burning is part of nature and we can only love what we have while it's here... poetry is about building new synaptic connections that make your brain light up in ways that it hasn't before because you're seeing the world in a whole new way. and it's not because you're identifying things that are new. nothing is new etc. etc. we've all heard the mantras before. it's because you're finding ways to connect things together that sparks electricity in the mind. and that's what really makes poetry make the world seem new again.

Was reading Mary Oliver's In Praise of Craziness of a Certain Kind and was hit by the idea of Astarion with a mortal Tav who develops dementia and loses all their sharpness and wit, so much of what they were, except for the kindness at the base of them that reached out to him in the first place

do you have any headcanons or AUs for riyira?

I do actually (mostly regarding how they speak since I read the stories aloud)!

Royce speaks usually in a monotone, I'm using my standard American accent, a little bit rougher, and a little deeper than my voice. He usually colder when he speaks, and raises his voice only on occasion.

Hadrian is a Scottish boi, I don't make the rules. I got that idea from when we got to see the village where he grew up. He usually sounds like he's smiling, and his voice is pitched just a bit higher than Royce's to balance out Arista's angry, almost-yelling voice.

Gwen's voice is very smooth and rich; deep and comforting, with a hint of an accent (I went for a mix of Greek and Italian for where Calais is in-universe). I would have felt weird imitating the accents of any Middle Eastern or African nations.

Arista is throaty and assertive. She speaks in a forceful, upper-class American accent (think East Coast Old Money/Robber Baron), and her voice is lower and serves to balance out Hadrian's lighter tone.

Alric is a little shit (especially at the beginning of Theft of Swords). He has the same accent as Arista, but is infinitely whinier. His voice is a bit nasally, and higher pitched, but lowers over the course of the books.

Myron's voice is soft and sweet as he is but is a little sad. His voice is higher pitched, floaty instead of nasal. His voice contains a childlike wonder at the world around him, but imbued with quiet confidence.

Albert Winslow sounds like a Southern Gentleman Who Didn't Own Slaves but is Super Oblivious.

Mauvin, Fanen, and the rest of the Pickering troupe have the same style speech as Alric and Arista, but they sound decidedly more Scandinavian. Mauvin sounds reedy, Fanen sounds breathy, Denek sounds more childlike, and Lenare has a more musical voice.

Esrahaddon has a British accent, for which I just imitated Tom Hiddleston. He is either slightly amused or super scary, and Hiddleston works for both.

Bishop Saldur sounds like Emperor Palpatine. No I will not be elaborating.

Modina/Thrace has another voice that changes over time. She starts out small and soft, and slightly Irish sounding, as do the people of her village. In later books, she retains the Irish lilt but her voice deepens and becomes more commanding as she grows into her title of Empress.

Magnus is from Brooklyn, and, like his character, softens over time. He begins angry, nasal, and sharp, and becomes a lot more measured as the story goes on.

All of the other characters are usually Mississippi Southern, Minnesota Midwestern, East End London, New York, Irish, Scottish or the Italian/Greek mixture depending on where we are and where they're from.

Most of the Elven characters have Eastern European accents.

Let me know if there's anything else you want to know or if I missed anyone, I love answering questions!