I woke today to the sad news that a favorite poet of mine, Mary Oliver, passed away yesterday. I have several collections of her poetry and would often sit down to read just one poem. But quickly it became one more, then one more, then one more. Like potato chips, I just couldn’t seem to get enough.

Here is one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems:

Freshen the Flowers, She Said

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.

Thank you, Mary, for your thoughtful musings and for showing me how to slow down and appreciate everything about my world.