Pro'ly me. Wild Geese has long been my favorite. I was using a line a week for my tag for awhile back-when.

Here's another:

The Buddha’s Last Instruction

“Make of yourself a light,”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal -- a white fan
streaked with pink and violet
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire --
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

- Mary Oliver
House of Light, New and Selected Poems

I finished Prodigal Summer and loved it. The plot development I feared never materialized (thank you, Katrina Bee for the info that kept me going!), hooray! Much of the book is an ecology and biology lesson, but I liked how she did it, a lot. She was very gentle and persuasive. The author reads the books on tape version and I highly recommend it.

Now I’m listening to my first Agatha Raisin, which is actually the 10th in the series. The reader is fabulous, another good pairing of voice and material. The character is reminding me a lot of msbelle – endearing, irascible, clever, outspoken, uses the word “ginormous.” It's delightful.

I love all the Oliver poetry popping up here! Shiny!

I was at Borders tonight and saw a Bunnyzilla collection in the sale area. Jilli knows about this, yes? I figure she must, but thought I'd check.

I'm not very up on the poems...which is too bad.

Never too late for that, erika!

No, I guess not. But you know, went through the Obligatory Writer Girl Teen Poet phase and have not given them much thought since...poetry (writing) now is country music to Xander...the music of pain.But I shouldn't neglect poets for that...it doesn't work that way for everyone.

But I shouldn't neglect poets for that...it doesn't work that way for everyone.

Yes, please drop the notion that poetry is about Expressing Feelings. Lyric poetry, of course, does this very ably, but that's because it's about Heightened Language. I recommend Marianne Moore who loved zoos and baseball and never foisted icky feelings on her readers.

I don't think feelings are icky...ok, sometimes mine are. But otherwise. I don't know where you get this stuff...be happy when one dirtbag gets beheaded, you're marked for life.

Feelings are fine. As John Gardner notes, every writer strives for sentiment. It's the sentimental you have to look out for.

I'm just down on poetry as Mood Dump. I also dislike Garden Poetry which gets all riled up about anglo saxon plant names and the juiciness of fecundity.