I've been working on this poster in fits and starts for a while. Like so much of what Mary Oliver shares, I thought it to be a good thing to slow down with these words. Here's an extended passage from Long Life, the beautiful build up to the world's big question:

Poets must read and study, but also they must learn to tilt and whisper, shout, or dance, each in his or her own way, or we might just as well copy the old books. But, no, that would never do, for always the new self swimming around in the old world feels itself uniquely verbal. And that is just the point: how the world, moist and bountiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?"

Mary Oliver from Long Life

What a lovely invitation, don't you think? And one that only you can answer...and me...and everyone else...but only we can take our lives, our perspective, our utterly unique self and craft some kind of creative contribution, some kind of responce... be it poetry or painting or motherhood or engineering or gardening or whatever.

I have a couple more lines of Ms. Oliver's I'd like to interpret, at which time I'll print some posters and make a little package for her. In the mean time, we're facebook friends via her agent. Do you think she's the type to google herself and scour through all the webpages about her until she finds my blog? I think probably not. I'm pretty confident the surprise is safe.