Mary Oliver

Today's featured poet is one that has long inspired me. I relate to this particular poem in a deep way. It whispers to me and the hair on my neck stands up.

An Afternoon In The Stacks by Mary Oliver

Closing the book, I find I have left my head inside. It is dark in here, but the chapters open their beautiful spaces and give a rustling sound, words adjusting themselves to their meaning.

Long passages open at successive pages. An echo, continuous from the title onward, hums behind me. From in here, the world looms, a jungle redeemed by these linked sentences

carved out when an author traveled and a reader kept the way open. When this book ends I will pull it inside-out like a sock and throw it back in the library. But the rumor of it will haunt all that follows in my life. A candleflame in Tibet leans when I move.

*** Many of you have read Oliver's work, especially Wild Geese. Every now and then I include a reference to wild geese in one of my poems. Yes, it is a tribute to her!

Mary Oliver born: September 10, 1935 died: January 17, 2019 She won numerous awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1984.