Oh yes, isn't that wonderful? It was in Writer's Almanac last week, right? I saved it in my inbox too. It's what prompted me to finally go buy an actual collection of her work.

This one I've got stuck to the back of my laptop:

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

It was in Writer's Almanac last week, right?

Yep. Nothing better than Garrisson Keillor reading poetry to you.

I've been inspired to change my tag.

Dana - speaking of, I adore yours. Where did it come from?

I was chatting with a friend about the trip to NY I'm taking. I'm doing a Broadway run, seeing Sondheim's Assassins, Avenue Q (which involves puppets), and The Boy From Oz (which involves Hugh Jackman singing and dancing in nicely tight pants).

On our way back from Avenue Q, my sister and I passed by the theatres where The Boy From Oz and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof are playing (right next door to each other). There is a review of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that praises the show's "pure, naked" direction posted on the outside wall of the theatre. We both noticed the words "pure, naked" next to the giant picture of Hugh Jackman and simultaneously gasped, before realizing that those words didn't mean what we'd assumed they did. t /pointless anecdote

Now that's doing Broadway right.

I love Oliver's poems, too. Here's my favorite:

Poppies
Mary Oliver

The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation
of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.

There isn't a place
in this world that doesn't
sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage
shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.

Of course nothing stops the cold,
black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,
when it's done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.

Inside the bright fields,
touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—

and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?

Oh! We read Mary Oliver in my writing class all the time, and, in fact, my teacher used "The Journey" as sort of a theme threaded throughout the semester a year or two ago.

KristinT -- I meant to make that my tagline recently, and forgot. I found it on my writing teacher's business card for her massage therapy business.

Teppy - do you want to share? I can share. I can even give, to someone with a cu...I mean snazzy hairdo like yours. :)