I am so lucky that every (afternoon) as I have my morning coffee, Joel ambles up to the river bench and smokes with me, and we look at flowers and talk of poetic syncopation and the gossip of last night, and invariably he offers me a new name, a new poem, which he thinks I would like. He is usually correct, smart soulful man. Today it was Mary Oliver, and how hot the sun suddenly, on our black attire, on our toes, the coffee burning more than my lips and his warnings that she may make me cry, but in the greatest way possible, the way only poetry can do. Enjoy today’s tidbits.
Wild Geese
Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
The Poeticians 
I believe what you published was very logical.
But, consider this, suppose you were to create a killer title?
I am not suggesting your content isn’t solid., but what if you added something that grabbed a person’s attention?
I mean The Poeticians.
LikeLike
Not sure what your comment means 🙂 Grateful you left a comment, but could you explain a little further what you mean? Thanks.
LikeLike