While I know it may come as a surprise to y’all, I have an admission to make: I love language. I revel in the swoop and cant of words. I delight in the delicious dewdrops of dialect. I collect well-turned phrases as if they were buttercups. I swim in the seas of syntax. I am transformed by the scratches of pens.

It is likely this disposition that makes me love music so much. Talented songwriters sing poetry into motion and strum all of our pain with their fingers. With a few short words they capture the essence of emotion and send it winging back to us on chords of connection.

Which is all just a lead-up to underscore how sad it is when the world loses these manipulators of meaning. In the wake of the passing of Mary Oliver, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, I found myself sitting with pen and paper, trying to channel her spirit. Here’s what my spirit answered in response:

 

If, perchance, today’s the day

you tip to your toes and –

calves bunching, fingers extended to rigid swords –

you coax the swirling mass of your doubts

to the back of the highest shelf you can reach

 

squeezed somewhere between

the abandoned dreams

and the carefully-kept love letters from your youth

 

and, touching down,

the linoleum cool on your bare toes, you turn

to face the dust motes

dancing in the window’s light

and sigh.

 

If that day has now arrived

shuffling, stammering, eyes downcast

but still arrayed before you in its formal clothes

 

Do not seize it!

It’s skittish and shy

and surely must sink if startled.

 

Stand, instead, your toes dug into the floor

your breath controlled

your words held in

your arms open.