Losing Mary Oliver

The reporter finds his story

“[I] go off to my woods, my ponds, my sun-filled harbor, no more than a blue comma on the map of the world but, to me, the emblem of everything…”
~ Mary Oliver, on life in Provincetown

Seeing things you could always count on changing or vanishing is strange. I’m often surprised by how fiercely I cling to times, places, and people once they are gone.

But more than these, I mourn constants lost. I feel unmoored, undone, and more than a bit blind whenever True North shifts. I don’t need much in this world, but I have my anchors—near and far. 

I never met the poet Mary Oliver other than through her words. And she certainly did not owe me an explanation. Still, I was floored when she packed up her Outer Cape life among the dunes and pinewoods of the Provincelands and moved south to Hobe Sound, Florida.

My reality was shaken. As silly as it sounds, as embarrassed as I am to write this, I felt a sense of betrayal. 

For the last few years of her life, I wondered why Mary Oliver left the place where her soul was anchored.

Hours were spent, perhaps even days, researching, seeking an answer. But Mary was a private person, and she was not one to give many interviews. She preferred to let her poetry and prose do the talking. 

Still, I was haunted. Something did not feel right. Some stories don’t make sense.

Samwise, Emily, and I are drawn to Provincetown for the same reasons Mary Oliver was—Nature. And like Mary, we are early risers, walking and stalking the trails and beaches, welcoming the sun as it rises out of the salty waters. We greet breaching whales, bounding deer, observant owls, and the lap, lap, lap, and crash of the Atlantic. I trace my fingertips along the bark of twisted pines and the smooth beech in the woodlands around her beloved Blackwater Pond.

She may have left, but her soul did not. I feel it as my palms lay flat on easy and rough bark, wondering, “Did she ever lean against this tree? Sit against it?”

Mary came to Provincetown because of love and lived there for over forty years. Her partner was the gifted photographer Molly Malone Cook. They’d met at Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Steepletop. They later learned they lived directly across the street from each other in NYC’s East Village. They rationed their time together initially and paced how often they’d see each other, even though both knew from their first meeting that they were destined to be together.