Poetry tea: Love, music dance, and poetry

A few years ago, I called to speak with my aunt in the hospital. She was ill and knew she was dying. I was living in Manhattan at the time and as I held the receiver in my hand, I awkwardly fumbled with what to say. Or not to. She made it easy for me. With her bright mind meeting easy heart, her final words to me were these:

In the end, all that matters is love, music, dance, and poetry.

I try to do each one of these things in some form every day.

The love, dance, and music parts come naturally. But poetry? It's taken me a while to discover it. But now, it's like a warm cup of tea for the soul. Something tells me my Auntie Marg would love this one...

Of Love

I have been in love more times than one,

thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting

whether active or not. Sometimes

it was all but ephemeral, maybe only

an afternoon, but not less real for that.

They stay in my mind, these beautiful people,

or anyway people beautiful to me, of which

there are so many. You, and you, and you,

whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe

missed. Love, love, love, it was the

core of my life, from which, of course, comes

the word of the heart. And, oh, have I mentioned

that some of them were men and some were women

and some - now carry my revelation with you -

were trees. Or places. Or music flying above

the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun

which was the first, and the best, the most

loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into

my eyes, every morning. So I imagine

such love of the world - its fervency, its shining, its

innocence and hunger to give of itself - I imagine

this is how it began.

- Mary Oliver