6.
I mention them now,
I will not mention them again.
It is not lack of love
nor lack of sorrow.
But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry.
I give them--one, two, three, four--the kiss of courtesy,
of sweet thanks,
of anger, of good luck in the deep earth.
May they sleep well. May they soften.
But I will not give them the kiss of complicity.
I will not give them the responsibility for my life.
-- Mary Oliver, "Flare"
Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.
-- Mary Oliver
The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.
-- Mary Oliver
I finished 10 books in 2021. The titles in bold were particularly influential, inspiring or intriguing.
1. 1. Possum Dreams by Julie Sola
2. 2. A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver
3. 3. Dog Songs: Poems by Mary Oliver
4. 4. Sects, Love, and Rock & Roll: My Life on Record by Joel Heng Hartse
5. 5. Broken Horses: A Memoir by Brandi Carlile
6. 6. My Family’s Soybean Farm by Katie Olthoff
7. 7. SHOUT by Laurie Halse Anderson
8. 8. Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love by Jonathan Van Ness
9. 9. Untamed by Glennon Doyle
10. An American Sunrise: Poems by Joy Harjo
