The Last Day of Poetry Month

I want to end Poetry Month by giving a gift.  This is what I chose: New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver, my favorite poet.   I considered a random drawing from those who "liked" or commented on a post this month, but then I thought, "No, I'm just going to buy a book of poetry for my friend Michelle."

Michelle, thank you for making this month so much fun. It is a pleasure to be your friend.


  I am lover and patron of Poetry, humanity's ancient friend.  And here is my reason:

"There's a toy much like a kaleidoscope but without the colored chips.  Like a kaleidoscope it consists of a mirrored tube.  You look through it and see whatever is at the other end.  Turn it toward just about anything and what's beyond you becomes more interesting.  That is how some poems work.  The poem is the device through which the ordinary world is seen in a new way--engaging, compelling, even beautiful."

Ted Kooser, The Poetry Home Repair Manual

Freshen the Flowers, She said

by Mary Oliver

So I put them in the sink, for the cool porcelain
was tender,
and took out the tattered and cut each stem
on a slant,
trimmed the black and raggy leaves, and set them all -
roses, delphiniums, daisies, iris, lilies,
and more whose names I don't know, in bright new water -
gave them

a bounce upward at the end to let them take
their own choice of position, the wheels, the spurs,
the little sheds of the buds. It took, to do this,
perhaps fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes of music
with nothing playing.