Evening benediction

A poem I wrote for Mary Oliver

We Must All Become Poets

When a poet dies, her words
brighten & fall like leaves

We must run & gather them,
press them in books

Iron them between wax,
preserve, but also reuse

Rush to make poems of our own
so we are not alone here for long

Write, quickly, write
We must all become poets.

~unpublished, for Mary Oliver