Morning: Mary Oliver

Salt shining behind its glass cylinder.
Milk in a blue bowl.
The yellow linoleum.
The cat stretching her black body from the pillow.
The way she makes her curvaceous response to the small, kind gesture.
Then laps the bowl clean.
Then wants to go out into the world
where she leaps lightly and for no apparent reason across the lawn,
then sits, perfectly still, in the grass.
I watch her a little while, thinking:
what more could I do with wild words?
I stand in the cold kitchen, bowing down to her.
I stand in the cold kitchen, everything wonderful around me.

I think Mary Oliver is quickly becoming a favorite. I love how she celebrates every day life and natural surroundings. This was just the right poem for this morning. I'm feeling tired, anxious and worried, and not at all inclined to notice my wonderful surroundings

I'm noticing that I like poetry that creates pictures in my mind. I think I've said this before. I'm not so keen on poetry that just celebrates the word, or is too obscure. I like it when it when I can relate in some way.

When I used to write poetry (in college, just one small step up from bad teenager poetry), my teacher used to say I had a knack for incorporating a story or a memory into the poem. Other people would write about mangoes or autumn leaves; I wrote about what it was like to have a track athlete and eccentric for a father. Certainly not any better than anyone else's, but I do like it when poetry pulls from life.

This morning, my morning, I am tired and anxious. The cats are hungry because I forgot to get cat food last night. Tiger Lily is sitting on my lap, occassionally biting my arm (a reminder?). It's cold outside. I am going in to work late because I worked late last night at the party. We are almost completely out of food in the house, and next week Terri starts to stay up in Sonoma County. I am missing her already.

This poem makes me feel slightly better. Just watch the cat. Just feel the weather.