There’s an old saying:

“Don’t speak unless you can improve upon the silence.”

This Mary Oliver poem fills me with thoughts and feelings about living and aging that are very close to the bone. But I should not speak about them unless I can improve upon the poem — and, of course, I can’t. Sit with it in silence and I’m sure you’ll see what I mean…

In Praise of Craziness, Of A Certain Kind
by Mary Oliver

… what shall I wish for, for myself,
but, being so struck by the lightning of years,
to be like her with what is left, that loving.

(Excerpted from New and Selected Poems: Volume Two. Read the full poem here.)