{"id":441,"date":"2014-04-01T00:00:18","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T00:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=441"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:51:12","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:51:12","slug":"april-1-your-place-in-the-family-of-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2014\/04\/01\/april-1-your-place-in-the-family-of-things\/","title":{"rendered":"April 1 — “Your place in the family of things”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday April 1 – Mary Oliver –<\/p>\n

I was driving home from the Heartland-Delta Board meeting, at John Carroll in Cleveland, when the bottom of the 9th inning at Comerica came into radio range a little this side of Toledo. Walk-off by a new Tiger shortstop; how sweet is that for Opening Day? Great time to listen in while savoring spring sun and 65\u00ba along I-80 and I-75. Even the heavy trucks looked good to me. Hanger-on snow piles get smaller and smaller. This feels like spring to these old bones.<\/p>\n

I have been saving this Mary Oliver poem since I came across it a couple weeks ago. Surely this is a poem about a hard, hard winter and the coming of Spring. Oliver invites a person to trust her\/his imagination and the kinship at the heart of each person’s human condition.<\/p>\n

Have a good day.
\njohn sj<\/p>\n

\u201cYou do not have to be good.
\nYou do not have to walk on your knees
\nfor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
\nYou only have to let the soft animal of your body
\nlove what it loves.
\nTell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
\nMeanwhile the world goes on.
\nMeanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
\nare moving across the landscapes,
\nover the prairies and the deep trees,
\nthe mountains and the rivers.
\nMeanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
\nare heading home again.<\/p>\n

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
\nthe world offers itself to your imagination,
\ncalls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting \u2013
\nover and over announcing your place
\nin the family of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2015\u00a0Mary Oliver<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Mary-Oliver\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday April 1 – Mary Oliver – I was driving home from the Heartland-Delta Board meeting, at John Carroll in Cleveland, when the bottom of the 9th inning at Comerica came into radio range a little this side of Toledo. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":443,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions\/443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}