*Aw, shucks* I'm blushing....and Mary Oliver

Today I received the most beautiful award for being a blogger, and what means most to me about it, is what the award is for - for being friendly, and welcoming, and here, this explanation says it better:
"This blog invests and believes in the PROXIMITY-nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this clever-written text into the body of their award."
Jeane at Dog Ear Diary nominated me, which I am thrilled about. She reviews the most amazing amount of animal books - psychology, adventure, life with, everything you can imagine, as well as reading as widely in everything else as the rest of us. And she is very friendly and funny, and has many fun draws also.

I'm not into blog comparison, because this isn't a sport or competition. We each create a blog we love, about the things we love: books, our families, life. I think each blog I visit has something original and creative about it, because it reflects the person. So I am touched when something about my blog reaches out to another person. It's like in a book, when a connection is made - when I understand perfectly what the author is saying; blogs allow each of us to touch one another and be in one another's lives, even if we never meet in person. I certainly am enriched by all of you that I have met through blogging. My hope is actually that if this award goes around, eventually everyone will get it!

With that in mind, I would like to give this award to some very special blogs who light the way for me:
1. Bybee at Naked Without Books
2. Deslily at Here, There and Everywhere
3. Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings
4. Cath at Read-Warbler
5. Raidergirl3 at An Adventure in Reading
6. JS Peyton at Biblioaddict
7. Geraniumcat at Geraniumcat's Bookshelf
8. Bride at Bride of the Book God

Onto a very special book I am reading: New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver, volume Two. Volume One is on order at the bookstore. I mention this because - not waiting for my eventual book review - I am reading a poem or two at night, and I already have two that I have taken
to heart.

From "Everything":
I want to make poems
that look into the earth and the heavens
and see the unseeable. I want them to honor
both the heart of faith, and the light of the world;
the gladness that says, without any words, everything.


and from "Work, Sometimes":
As for myself, I swung the door open. And there was
the wordless, singing world. And I ran for my life.


I simply had to share that. Because when I read those words, I feel a ripple of delight in my soul. That is what I do, I run into nature. At this moment in March, when it is sub-zero temperatures and still too much snow to wander into the fields and by the river, I am simply waiting for the snow to go so I can go out into the' wordless, singing world' again. what a lovely, perfect vision of nature.

I have only recently discovered Mary Oliver, this is her second book of poetry I am reading, and if it's possible to fall in love with words on a page, that's what I'm doing.

I haven't given up on Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes, on the contrary, I've had to take it down to the living room where i can dip into it when I'm wide awake. Those poems are so passionate, and angry and sad and loving at the same time, that I can't read them just before sleep. I have to be wide awake to take them in and consider them. Mary Oliver I can take with me into sleep, into my dreams where there is singing without words sometimes too.

I know poetry isn't widely read anymore, but I just had to share what I'm discovering, because Mary Oliver's work is of such beauty to me. Poetry doesn't have to be difficult, or obfuscate, or confuse or tongue-tie (though the latter is fun!); poetry for me is about seeing the world as it is, as directly and honestly as possible. At least that is how I have written my own poetry, trying to find the clearest way to say what I mean. Oliver's poetry is about being in love with nature, while seeing with a clear eye the predator-prey relationship. Isn't that a lovely way to be, to live one's life, in love with the world?

May you find a some beauty in your day today. And find a good book to capture you!