Thank you to Father Staudenmaier for inviting me to guest curate the Mission and Identity Poetry listserv. It might be difficult to choose readings for the rest of the week, but the first is easy.
Monday May 5th, 2014
Everyone should have a favorite poem.
Mine is one that works equally well in moments of sadness and joy. We included it on our wedding program and the birth announcements of our two daughters. I expect one of them will reference it somehow when I die.
Raymond Carver wrote “Late Fragment” soon before he died of lung cancer at the age of fifty. It is the last poem in his final book.
He called it a fragment, but to me it is complete.
“Late Fragment”
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mary-Catherine Harrison, Ph.D.