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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 22

He does not enter a house at night, or when it rains.
He is not afraid of the wind, though he is cautious.
He watches the snake, that stripe of black fire,
until it flows away[...]
He keeps his prayer under his tongue.
In his whole life he has never missed the rising of the sun
#MaryOliver #Caturday

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 21

What I want to say is that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is, and you are capable
of choosing what that will be, darling citizen
So come to the pond, or the river of your imagination, or the harbor of your longing
and put your lips to the world
And live your life
#MaryOliver

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 19

"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds,

It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk."

#Poetry #WaltWhitman #SongOFMyself

Picture of a landscape of dark mountains, above it there's a lighter sky and above that there are dark clouds.

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Reposted by Poetry Living

Meg Park, M.Div. @megpark.bsky.social · Feb 19

“Re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your soul. (Walt Whitman). For that to be the opportunity afforded, you must reflect on what is in your soul.

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SIXTY SENSE @sixtysense.bsky.social · Feb 19

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, not look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books. You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, you shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 18

"What is money for?
To spend, he says.
And wine?
To drink.
And women?
To love.
And today?
For joy.
And tomorrow?
For joy.
And the green sea
For strength,
And the brown land
For laughter.
And nothing hereafter."

#Poetry #LangstonHughes #YoungSailor #Hughesday

White text on a blue background featuring the silhouette of a bird and a plant.

The text reads:

"Today?
For joy.
Tomorrow?
For joy.
The green sea
For strength,
The brown land
For laughter.
and nothing hereafter."

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Reposted by Poetry Living

Nurse Smitty @apsmith1.bsky.social · Feb 17

Langston Hughes Quoted:

O, let America be America again

The land that never has been yet

And yet must be – the land where every man is free.”

“Hold fast to your dreams, for without them life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly” 💯💙

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Mich2Cali • RIP Twitter (2011-2024) @michoacan2cali.bsky.social · Feb 18

Langston Hughes
Poet; Playright; Author
#BlackHistoryMonth

www.biography.com/authors-writ...

Langston Hughes: Harlem Renaissance Poet and Playwright

Langston Hughes was a Black writer whose poems, columns, novels, and plays made him a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

www.biography.com

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Reposted by Poetry Living

Sari @stramentum.bsky.social · Feb 15

I illustrated one of my favorite poems (wild geese by Mary Oliver) so I could frame it and hang it in m bedroom ✨

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Reposted by Poetry Living

gilly-gilly.bsky.social @gilly-gilly.bsky.social · Feb 17

Things!
Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful fire! More room in your heart for love, for the trees! For the birds who own nothing—the reason they can fly.
-Mary Oliver

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 18

"The man who has many answers
is often found
in the theaters of information
where he offers, graciously,
his deep findings.
While the man who has only questions,
to comfort himself, makes music."
#MaryOliver #TheManWhoHasManyAnswers #MaryMonday

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Rachel Lense is Professionally Curious @rachellense.bsky.social · Feb 17

Over the years, I've found comfort in writing out other people's #poetry and drawing little sketches to accompany them. Please enjoy Mary Oliver's "What Gorgeous Thing" with a cute, fat birb and spring blossoms.
💙📚🐦🌱🌸🪶

Black and white sketches of an Eastern Bluebird and 5-petaled flowers blooming on naked branches accompany a hand-written version of the poem "What Gorgeous Thing" by Mary Oliver.

I do not know what gorgeous thing
the bluebird keys saying,
his voice easing out of his throat,
beak, body into the pink air
of the early morning. I like it
whatever it is. Sometimes
it seems the only thing in the world
that is without dark thoughts.
Sometimes it seems the only thing
in the world that is without
questions that can't and probably
never will be answered, the
only thing that is entirely content
with the pink, then clear white
morning and, gratefully, says so.

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 13

"The poetry of earth is never dead."

#Poetry #JohnKeats
#CamillePisarro #HydePark

Painting by impressionist artist Camille Pisarro.

It features a lane in Hyde Park lined with trees. The foliage varies from green to orange.

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 12

"I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

I beat and pound for the dead,
I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.
Vivas to those who have fail'd!"

#Poetry #WaltWhitman #SongOfMyself #WhitmanWednesday

Words against a blackground featuring some mountains on the bottom.

The words read:

"Battles are
lost
in the same spirit in which they are
won.

Walt Whitman"

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 12

"I have been bent and broken, but -I hope- into a better shape."

#Poetry #EmilyDickinson

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 12

Today is the 62nd anniversary of the death of Sylvia Plath, who captured loneliness in a way that continues to resonate with so many.

#Poetry #SylviaPlath #TheUnabridgedJournals

And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter — they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long.
- Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 11

"They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed,—

I, too, am America."

#LangstonHughes #TheWearyBlues #BlackHistoryMonth #Hughesday

EPILOGUE

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 11

"We are not women who measure ourselves by the underestimation of others

[...]

Women are the schoolhouses of our humanity
Women are the architects of our communities
Women are the prophets of our potential"

#MerallSherif
#InternationalDayOfWomenAndGirlsInScience #WomenInSTEM 🧪

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 11

“A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life.

Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.”

#Poetry #MaryOliver #TheLeafAndTheCloud

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 11

"Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know."

#Poetry #WaltWhitman #SongOfMyself

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 10

"Why do I have so many thoughts, they are driving me crazy.
Why am I always going anywhere, instead of somewhere?
Listen to me or not, it hardly matters.
I’m not trying to be wise, that would be foolish."

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Solivagant @wanderingsag.bsky.social · Feb 9

yes, I am willing to be that wild darkness,
that long,
blue body of light.

~Mary Oliver

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 9

"I thought the earth remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.

[...]

By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better."

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Trail Tracing — Trace H @trailtracing.bsky.social · Feb 7

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”
—Mary Oliver

#joshuatree #rockwren #attention #TrailTracing #SeeThingsDifferently #Olympus #OMSystem #ArtInNature #Nature #TakeAHike #CloseUpPhotography #NaturePhotography #NatureBreak

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Poetry Living @poetryliving.bsky.social · Feb 7

Yes! One of my favorites too 🤍

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