PRAISE TO OLIVER

Package of poetry books waiting for me on the porch when we finally made it home last night - nice. I was so excited to read Mary Oliver's 42 new poems in her New and Selected Poems Volume Two. I was not disappointed. She continues to amaze and uplift. Her poems remind me what my ultimate goal of poetry has always been - to praise. She did throw a curve ball - a poem with politics - which, I believe, is someplace she said poetry shouldn't go. But in these times, who can resist?

Percy (Two)

I have a little dog who likes to nap with me.
He climbs on my body and puts his face in my neck.
He is sweeter than soap.
He is more wonderful than a diamond necklace,
which can't even bark.
I would like to take him to Kashmir and the Ukraine,
and Jerusalem and Palestine and Iraq and Darfur,
that the sorrowing thousands might see his laughing mouth.
I would like to take him to Washington, right into
the oval office
where Donald Rumsfeld would crawl out of the president's
armpit
and kneel down on the carpet, and romp like a boy.

For once, for a moment, a rational man.


Thank you Mary Oliver!