Welcome back to The Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Friday, July 2, 2021.

Today's poem is by an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

Mary Oliver, who lived from 1935 to 2019, was, of course, one of our country's most beloved poets, especially during the last quarter

century of her life. And the poem that I'm going to read today is called The Riders. I was

pointed to it by someone online on social media, and I went back to try to figure out who it was,

and unfortunately, I could not find the original post.

So I want to give that person out there in the Twitter sphere credit for posting this poem.

I screenshotted what they post, and I liked it so much that I wanted to share it with you.

It's called The Writers. It goes like this.

When the Pony Express needed riders, it advertised a preference for orphans.

That way, no one was likely to ask questions when the carriers failed to arrive,

or the frightened ponies stumbled in with their dead from the flanks of the prairies.

This detail from our country's past has no particular significance. It is only a footnote.

There were plenty of orphans, and the point, of course, was to get the mail through, so the theory was sound.

And besides, think of those rough, lean boys, how light and hard they would ride, fleeing the great

loneliness.

As with so many of Mary Oliver's best poems, and as with many of the best poems ever written,

this poem ends with a deep and subtle surprise.

The pathos of this poem builds progressively.

The way Oliver writes the poem, the way she

structures the lines, reveals that as the poem progresses what her themes are. So, for example,

she has a line that ends to ask questions when the carriers failed. So to imply, you know,

...