New series, five things, on Fridays. Here’s a story. Back when I was in college, I had this professor. He was a wild-haired writer, a child of another era. He wore tweed blazers and drove a little sports car. He was the first person to teach me about poetry, really teach me I mean. On our first day of class, he asked us to go around the room and name…
mary oliver
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life lately // late summer {heart-spill}
Read moreIt’s been awhile since I “checked in” here on the blog. I’m always writing about the house, the garden, the babies — and I don’t often stop to update about me. Sure, all of those things are parts of me, but as a blog reader…
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Poetry Friday: Wild Geese | Mary Oliver
Read moreWild 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…
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Poetry Friday: The Uses of Sorrow | Mary Oliver
Read moreThe Uses of Sorrow | Mary Oliver (In my sleep I dreamed this poem) Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.
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Poetry Friday: In Blackwater Woods | Mary Oliver
Read moreIn Blackwater Woods | 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,…
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The Journey
Read moreby Mary Oliver One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice– though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each…