Poetry challenge: Borrow lines from your favorite poet to create a new poem.

Mary Oliver Mash-Up

Have you ever been so happy in your life?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I, too, have known loneliness.

I also know the way the old life haunts the new. 

I do not live happily or comfortably.

I keep looking around me.

Sometimes there are no rules.

Light is an invitation to happiness.

One or two things are all you need.

Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.

Only if there are angels in your head will you ever possibly see one. 

What blazes the trail is not necessarily pretty.

Meanwhile the world goes on. 

Excuse me, I have work to do.

I have put on my boots and opened the kitchen door and stepped out.

-Kim Johnson

Lines borrowed from these poems, in order:

Goldfinches

Summer Day

Loneliness

Benjamin, Who Came From Who Knows Where

With Thanks to the Field Sparrow

Some Questions You Might Ask

Three Things to Remember

Poppies

One or Two Things

It Was Early

The World I Live In

Skunk Cabbage

Wild Geese

I Go Down to the Shore

Farm Country