Poetry Thursday-Favorite Lines

Wild nights-Wild nights!

Were I with thee

Wild nights should be

Our luxury!

~emily dickinson

Dying

is an art, like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.

I do itso it feels like hell.

I do it so it feels real.

I guess you could say, I've a call.

~sylvia plath

I first started reading poetry when I was a teenager -
well, who didn't? These lines were among my favorites, and pretty well
exemplify the roller-coaster ride that was my emotional life in those days.
No, I really wasn't bi-polar, although if there had been a barometer on my feelings, it
might have appeared as if I were.

For years, I didn't read poetry at all.

And then, thanks to Poetry Thursday (thank you, thank you, thank you!)

I found these lines:

Every day

I see or hear

something

that more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light.

It is what I was born for -

to look, to listen,

to lose myself

inside this soft world -

to instruct myself

over and over

in joy,

and acclamation.

from "Mindful", by Mary Oliver

Not coincidentally did I place these words in the center of the page. These are the words that restore balance to my life, overfilled as it sometimes is with minituae and busyness.

These are the words and set me on the right course, when I seem to be veering off into some dark distance. These are the words that remind me "what I was born for."

I'm now long years away from being a teenager, and, no, my nights are not "wild" by any stretch of the imagination. But, neither do I dwell in thoughts of the "art of dying." I'm happiest when I can "lose myself in this soft world," and "instruct myself in joy and acclamation."