Welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern. Today is February 24th,

2020, and today's poem is by Mary Oliver. Before I get to that, though, I want to apologize for

not getting poems to you Thursday and Friday of last week. Came down with a cold at the end of last week

and lost my voice, so you might be able to tell now I'm still don't

have it completely back. But I did want to make sure to get you some poems for this week. And the

poem that I'm going to read today is, as I said, by Mary Oliver, who was an American poet who lived

from 1935 to 2019. She died just over a year ago on January 17th of last year.

She won the National Book Award

and the Pulitzer Prize.

And in 2007,

the New York Times called her

Far and Away

this country's best-selling poet.

The poem that I'm going to read today

is called

Gethsemini.

It goes like this.

The grass never sleeps, or the roses,

nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning. Jesus said, wait with me,

but the disciples slept. The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,

and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body, and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.

Jesus said, wait with me, and maybe the stars did. Maybe the wind wound itself into a silver tree and didn't move.

...