Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Mary Oliver

Because my last post prompted some of you to publicly praise Mary Oliver's poetry (and rightly so), and because I would like to pay tribute to my recently-departed kitty, here is one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems for your enjoyment:

To Live in This World


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.

Source: In Blackwater Woods
 
 



                                               In loving memory of Callie