The poet Mary Oliver died at 83 yesterday. I hope you’ve encountered her work.
She is the great poet of being human, a lyrical poet who managed to touch a large audience with her simplicity and eloquent insight about making meaning from everyday wonder.
Here is part of one of her best, from her poem titled “When Death Comes.”
When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
Whatever else you might say about Mary Oliver, she fully inhabited this world.
Poetry helps keep us sane, in this insane time. And now, back to the madness of Trump.
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