Welcome to Knitting in the Desert brought to you by LMB Knits!  Thanks for stopping by and witnessing this inauspicious beginning.  This blog will be all about knitting and all about writing and literature (with lots of poetry) and some about movies, parenting, and athletics/fitness (otherwise known as the desperate attempt of a middle aged white upper middle class American woman to defy that catchy statement: "Gravity -- it's not just a good idea, it's the law.").  This is an especially appropriate day to launch this blog because it is Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading Day.  Thanks to grace's poppies for this special celebration.  I was planning to launch after I had the blog customized and all spiffed up but I couldn't miss this poetry opportunity.  So here is my contribution.

Wild Geese 

You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees 
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
love what it loves. 
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. 
Meanwhile the world goes on. 
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain 
are moving across the landscapes, 
over the prairies and the deep trees, 
the mountains and the rivers. 
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, 
are heading home again. 
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 
the world offers itself to your imagination, 
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place 
in the family of things.

© Mary Oliver. Online Source

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save. 

© Mary Oliver. Online Source

Coming up in just a few moments, some knitting content and photos!  Thanks again for joining me!