I recently received Mary Oliver’s book, Devotions. I keep it next to my bed and each night read a handful of poems. I swear they were written for me. To stir and then settle my thoughts.

Mary Oliver has an incredible way with words. Each new page is vibrating with magic, the type of magic that goes a few extra layers deep. You feel it. Do you have a Mary Oliver favorite?

The Other Kingdoms, Mary Oliver, Devotions

Consider the other kingdoms. The

trees, for example, with their mellow-sounding

titles: oak, aspen, willow.

Or the snow, for which the peoples of the north

have dozens of words to describe its

different arrivals. Or the creatures, with their

thick fur, their shy and wordless gaze. Their

infallible sense of what their lives

are meant to be. Thus the world

grows rich, grows wild, and you too,

grow rich, grow sweetly wild, as you too

were born to be.