10/09/2026
So the cake topper I ordered with a photo of Mary Oliver and Percy on it - did not arrive. Left to my own devices and a few letter writing tricks I learnt at 15 working at an ice cream store - I decorated the cake with words by Mary. I mean, what better on a cake than lines by Mary Oliver? And as you can see it turned out just fine.
Happy 91st birthday Mary Oliver. We celebrated you well. Poems, flute, Rumi, cake, ch*****ne, books, stories, laughter and tears. Dear Mary - you are so very much still with us. I even got the whole audience to sing you happy birthday.
Enormous thanks to Chloe Chung 鈡莉 for the stirring and transportive melodies you created with your flute. And your readings of Mary and Rumi. It was perfect. Divine.
Thank you Gertrude & Alice for bringing us Mary books. Thank you Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf for hosting us so delightfully. It is a magical space and I am so grateful to host Poetica there.
Finally, one of my favourite Mary Oliver poems I didn’t share tonight.
THE FIRST TIME PERCY CAME BACK
The first time Percy came back
he was not sailing on a cloud.
He was loping along the sand as though
he had come a great way.
“Percy,” I cried out, and reached to him –
those white curls –
but he was unreachable. As music
is present yet you can’t touch it.
“Yes, it’s all different,” he said.
But I wasn’t thinking of that. I only
wanted to hold him. “Listen,” he said,
“I miss that too.
And now you’ll be telling stories
of my coming back
and they won’t be false, and they won’t be true,
but they’ll be real.”
And then, as he used to, he said, “Let’s go!”
And we walked down the beach together.
