Why has it been so long since I’ve read a book of poetry?

Last night, I finished Red Bird, a book of poems by Mary Oliver. Loved it. Here’s a gem from p. 37, a bit of a poem called “Sometimes:”

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Well. There it is then. That about sums it up.

This book is full of wonderful poems — and wonderful bird poems.

My grandmother studied ornithology at Cornell in the 1920’s. When I was getting married, I started noticing birds EVerywhere; and their songs were so loud, and varied, and rich. I was sure they were congratulating me, welcoming me into their little lovebird club. My groom and I lived in our “love grotto,” as we liked to call it, the top floor of an old house redone into three apartments, where we set out birdseed and watched the love birds flock.

Of course, my two favorite poems from this book…not bird poems… Here is a fabulous one from p. 46 called “Of the Empire.”

We will be known as a culture that feared death
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many. We will be known as a culture that taught
and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke
little if at all about the quality of life for
people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All
the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a
commodity. And they will say that this structure
was held together politically, which it was, and
they will say also that our politics was no more
than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of
the heart, and that the heart, in those days,
was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

Ouch. Must. read. more. poetry. Got any recommendations?