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S40E5: Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World | Clip

Steve Buscemi reads Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Fish”

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Listen to Steve Buscemi read Mary Oliver’s poem “The Fish” in this excerpt from the film. “She’s going to the deepest, most contradictory places where life and death usher from the same source.”

TRANSCRIPT

- [Narrator] She's going to the deepest, most contradictory places where life and death usher from the same source, and then she's speaking with clear language about that mystery.

(soft music) - The first fish I ever caught would not lie down quiet in the pail, but flailed and sucked at the burning amazement of the air, and died in the slow pouring off of rainbows.

Later, I opened his body and separated the flesh from the bones and ate him.

Now the sea is in me.

I am the fish.

The fish glitters in me.

We are risen, tangled together, certain to fall back to the sea.

Out of pain and pain and more pain, we feed this feverish plot.

We are nourished by the mystery.

(soft music) - [Narrator 2] People think of her walking the beaches of Provincetown without troubling anyone or having troubles herself and that certainly wasn't the life that she led.