
Advice to Myself by Louise Erdrich
- 1.Poetry Thursday!
- 2.Poetry Thursday!
- 3.Poetry almost Thursday, Thanksgiving Edition
- 4.The first day of December, Poetry Thursday
- 5.Boy At the Window — Poetry Thursday
- 6.A Poem About Evolution — Poetry Thursday
- 7.Like Snow – Poetry Thursday
- 8.The Peace of Wild Things – Poetry Thursday
- 9.Rain – Poetry Thursday
- 10.The Real Work – Poetry Thursday
- 11.To The River – Poetry Thursday
- 12.A Beautiful Poem About Internal Darkness
- 13.Poetry Thursday – Genius
- 14.Poetry Thursday – Soon This Space Will Be Too Small
- 15.A Poem from Stephen Harrod Buhner
- 16.To Bless the Space Between Us – Poetry Thursday!
- 17.Poetry Thursday – A Quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- 18.Poetry Thursday – Sarah Cleghorn
- 19.On a Tree Fallen Across the Road by Robert Frost
- 20.A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman
- 21.My Will by Lorna Goodison
- 22.Going Away – A Poem from the Quechua
- 23.Blessing by John O’Donohue
- 24.The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins
- 25.Wild Geese by Wendell Berry
- 26.Silence of the Fall by Louisa Paulin
- 27.Poetry Thursday – Karl Ove Knausgaard
- 28.Snow Day by Billy Collins – Poetry Thursday
- 29.Winter Solstice by Jodi Aliesan – Poetry Thursday
- 30.A Brief For The Defense by Jack Gilbert
- 31.Lost by David Wagoner
- 32.Fiddling with the Idiot by Hafiz
- 33.The Sixth of January by David Budbill
- 34.Two Tramps in Mud Time by Robert Frost
- 35.What We Need is Here by Wendell Berry
- 36.Keep Moving Forward by Mitchell Greenwood
- 37.When I am Among the Trees by Mary Oliver
- 38.Praying by Mary Oliver
- 39.Thirst by Mary Oliver
- 40.Blueberries by Mary Oliver
- 41.The Sycamore by Wendell Berry
- 42.Jealous Hearing Someone Laugh by Hafiz
- 43.Advice to Myself by Louise Erdrich
- 44.Egg by C.G. Hanzlicek
- 45.The Broken Gourd by Wendell Berry
- 46.Another Spring by Kenneth Rexroth
- 47.Poetry Thursday – the Visionary Paintings of Paul Laffoley
- 48.Two Poems by Mary Oliver
- 49.What If? A poem by Ganga White
- 50.See No Evil by Billy Collins
- 51.We Who Prayed and Wept by Wendell Berry
- 52.Holy Thursday by William Blake
- 53.Woman by Nikki Giovanni
- 54.Choices by Nikki Giovanni
- 55.A Quote from Hafiz
- 56.The First by Wendell Berry
- 57.Excerpt for an Improvised Speech by Robert F. Kennedy
- 58.Riding Lesson by Henry Taylor
- 59.Messenger by Mary Oliver
- 60.In Rain by Wendell Berry
- 61.A Poetry Thursday with Rumi
- 62.Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye
- 63.Sometimes by David Whyte
- 64.Having it Out with Melancholy by Jane Kenyon
- 65.After an Illness, Walking the Dog by Jane Kenyon
- 66.Admit Something by Hafiz
- 67.Turtle Mountain Reservation by Louise Erdrich
- 68.The Layers by Stanley Kunitz
- 69.Martian Rose by Stuart Atkinson
- 70.To The Unseeable Animal by Wendell Berry
Advice to Myself
by Louise Erdrich
Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don’t patch the cup.
Don’t patch anything. Don’t mend. Buy safety pins.
Don’t even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don’t keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll’s tiny shoes in pairs, don’t worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don’t even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don’t sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we’re all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don’t answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don’t read it, don’t read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.