The Earth As God's Body: Incarnation As Communion in the Poetry of Mary Oliver‪.‬

"I am sensual in order to be spiritual."--Oliver, "Winter Hours" In the poems Mary Oliver writes and the manner in which she has chosen to live her life, it is clear that the poet's vocation consists of attending to the world, which for her is a sacred home. With the vitality and second sight of a mystic, Oliver proclaims that inside the "bright fields" of poppies "is an invitation / to happiness, / and that happiness / / when it's done right, / is a kind of holiness, / palpable and redemptive" ("Poppies" Blue Iris 45). For nearly fifty years, in her art Oliver has celebrated this kind of "happiness"--which she locates in the daily workings of the earth--and with gratitude and reverence she has been redeemed by her love for the earth again and again, declaring that "every day / I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth / of the ideas of God" ("So Every Day," Red Bird 70).