Tuesday Poem: The Summer Day by Mary Oliver [a reading]

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

                                                   Mary Oliver

These two wonderful lines - the  last two lines of Oliver's 'The Summer Day' -  are the perfect preface to a novel I just reviewed today for Radio NZ:  Isabel Allende's Maya's Notebook. Which is why it's on my mind.

What better question could there be? In fact, the whole of the poem is a wonderful thing. It's about the art of paying attention - showing 'love', in effect - and thereby transforming both the thing we pay attention to and ourselves. Which is what Isabel Allende believes and is in evidence, in all its glory, in her most recent novel.

Grass, acid, vanilla: the chemistry of book smells

Tuesday Poem: Litany by Billy Collins as recited by a 3 year old

This is kind of strange, but people come in all shapes and sizes. I find it interesting what the words do coming from the mouth of a babe and where the meaning lies. For more Tuesday Poems out of the mouths of babes and others - click on the quill in the sidebar or HERE.

At the hub is a strange and fascinating offering by Janis Freegard about an axolotl - editor Saradha Koirala selected it, and in the sidebar... well, click to see!