Did Someone Say It's National Poetry Day?

Well then, HOORAY! 

I am thankful for the gorgeous one who introduced poetry to me, though I encountered my favorite on my own. 

I remember the exact Saturday in early September (It was 8:30 in the morning.) I remember precisely what I was doing (If you care to know, I was laying on my back in Millennium Park preparing for a 100 person community yoga class. My eyes were closed.) I remember exactly how it felt at that moment (The bright, Indian summer sun was warming my body. Anticipation.)

And this is when I heard it for the first time…

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles throughout the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about 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.

- Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

Courtesy of William Shakespeare

As Eve surely uttered,

I did at our beginning,

and mean now still.

For more than half a life,

As William wrote,

“I do love nothing in the world as I do you.”

***********************

(This week’s Trifecta challenge: Exactly 33 words and one of the must be a palindrome (a word or phrase that reads the same forwards and backwards).)

It’s my 25^th anniversary and time has passed too frighteningly quickly. And through the highs and lows (because there were many), good times and those more challenging (and broke), there are a few choices I wish I’d made differently. This is not one of them.

I wasn’t going to participate this week because I have many other celebratory type things on my mind, but I couldn’t help myself. I will miss Trifecta more than my meager and ineloquent words here can express. I can’t recall how I stumbled upon them in January 2012, but I’ve never missed a Monday or Friday where I didn’t look for the prompt or read about the winners. Hats off to Lisa and Joules for creating the awesome place it is by bringing together some of the most talented, kind and respectful writers. They had a tough job and did it with great spirit. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!