put your lips to the world

Sometimes I try to be strategic about when during the month I post Mary Oliver—at the end? early? right in the middle?—and then sometimes you just have to post some Mary Oliver.

For years, every morning, I drank
from Blackwater Pond.
It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,
the feet of ducks.

And always it assuaged me
from the dry bowl of the very far past.

What I want to say is
that the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.

So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.
And live
your life.

—Mary Oliver (1935-2019), "Mornings at Blackwater," from Red Bird, 2008.