November 21, 2008 Miami, FL

On Friday morning we stopped by the Oliver-Pyatt center for eating disorders in south Miami. I sat and talked to eight young women from around the country who are struggling with anorexia. They each received a copy of This is Who I Am as a gift from Wendy Oliver-Pyatt, the founder of the center. I was so moved to be in their presence. I read from This is Who I Am and then read some poetry. Poetry has always had a very healing quality for me.

One of the poems is called Body Beautiful which I wrote while working on my book and which I often read when I speak about the book. The other is a poem I love by Galway Kinnell called St. Francis and the Sow. This is one of my favorite poems. It talks about St Francis blessing a sow, a lowly animal that one might consider “ugly”. And with the blessing, the sow is able to find her own blessing from within—“self blessing”. It is such a beautiful poem and relates so much to people struggling with eating disorders who are in search of that “self-blessing”. I can hardly read it without tears.

Many people have asked me for the Body Beautiful poem, so here it is:

Body Beautiful

Body my steady companion
without whom I would be
only a thought or a breeze or
rain passing over the sea,
my ready vessel for
children who never came,
you trundled my dark soul
patiently, Herculean task,
over the mountains of my
sadness and endured
decades of demands for
better or thinner.
Even so, you dip
to country music,
soar with love’s caress,
and sing aloud while walking
down the street.
I stop for this moment
to give you praise.

©Rosanne Olson 2004