A response to Mary Oliver’s “Spring Azures”
The “life of the imagination” can go two ways, like
divergent paths; both attempts at righteousness. One way seeks escape—a turning
away from what is. To not see the pain and dirt and loss around, but instead to
focus on what I want, what I need. This path seems holy, at a glance—perhaps like
living in a city on a hill—but in the end this imagination abandons both now
and not yet for elsewhere entirely.
But then there is the imagination which turns toward. It is
a path which goes not around but through. It is to stand in the midst of personal
striving and polluting factories, and to see beyond; looking not at what is but
what can be, as if we can cultivate this present reality with love like a great
Gardener. Then we imagine in order to make real, and find strength and beauty
both in the world and ourselves.
For it is the power of the dreamer to transform night into
day.
