Alive

Yesterday, while my son was at his piano lesson, I went to the public library, and while I was there I came across a book by Mary Oliver entitled Long Life: Essays and Other Writings. Mary Oliver is the author of that poem, Wild Geese, among many others. In any case I brought her book home, along with a stack of others, and last evening I opened the book, and in the introduction I came across this—one of the loveliest invitations to making language–to writing–that I’ve seen—

And that is just the point: how the world, moist and bountiful, calls to each of us to make a new a serious response. That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning, ‘Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?’